Peaches
Kingsburg: The Kingsburg area is finishing up thinning. Irrigation is ongoing and block by block estimates are complete. Crop looks good but the tonnage is down. Our Madera grower is thinning now and finishing up late this week.
Organics: The crop is doing well. We are seeing some more color on the American variety. Harvest started this week.
Modesto: Growers continue to thin their Late and Extra late varieties. Labor continues to be adequate and fruit sizing continues to look good. We continue to gather our block by block estimates and should be done with them this week.
Yuba City: In the North, fruit continues to develop. We had some rainfall two weeks ago, but the temperatures rose right back up into the high 90’s at the beginning of last week. Growers continue to thin.
Peach Thinning:
Thinning is the process of removing a portion of fruit from each limb or branch in our peach orchards while fruit is still immature. Thinning fruit trees may seem counterproductive to a successful peach harvest, however there are four reasons why thinning out fruit in mid-growth season benefits our trees and our ultimate peach harvest.
4 benefits of thinning fruit:
- Discourages overbearing and early fruit drop
- Improves and allows remaining fruit size, color and quality
- Helps to avoid limb damage from an overly heavy fruit load
- Stimulates future year crop and helps avoid biennial bearing
Cherries
We received our first cherries on June 5th from Washington. Harvest will start in The Dalles and Salem by the end of the week. Crop development continues to be good for both quality and timing. We are finishing our crop estimates and preparing for harvest.
Grapes
The crop looks good. Weather impact should be okay as heat is one day at a time so far.
Apricots
Fruit is beginning to turn a pale green. Anticipated harvest start date is June 15th. Like 2015, we will have one of the shortest crops in years. Growers are still concerned about labor, not if there is enough, but how much it will cost. Mowing and irrigation continues in all orchards.
Tomatoes
Organic Tomatoes: Crop continues to mature as expected and is looking good.
Pear Tomatoes: Starting to see dime to nickel sized fruit with some regularity in the early fields.
Conventional Tomatoes: Plants continue to mature as expected. We are starting to see dime to nickel sized fruit with some regularity on early plantings. The mid and late season plantings are looking healthy and progressing nicely.
Pears
River and Linden Districts: Crop volume still appears to be below average. Pears are ranging in size from 1.4”-2”, with the average being close to 1.7”. These are nearly the same measurements as last year at this time.
Mendocino and Lake Districts: Crop volume varies from orchard to orchard and tree to tree. Crop quality looks good. Growers in both districts are irrigating and mowing orchard floors.
Pineapple
This year the pineapple production estimates are at the bottom end of the range considered to be healthy or normal; it is projected to be 1,800,000 – 1,900,000 metric tons. The final revised total for 2017 was 1,882,283 metric tons.
Oysters
The production season for 2018 of canned oysters in Korea started at the end of April, which is approximately three weeks later than normal. Unusual cold temperatures had a negative impact on the early oyster crop and production; we will see at the end of the season how it affected production levels.