“Storms have not heavily impacted the Arizona/California desert growing districts so harvesting has been proceeding daily as scheduled,” says Shaw. What hasn’t been faced with further issues looks to be the lettuce market following late 2022’s spike in prices and tight supplies. To help keep customers covered, Hiltner notes that particularly over the next few days it’s communicating openly with its customers about any shortages. “The challenge is trying to cover our orders with the demand, especially at the start of the year when there’s big demand,” says Ganajian. However back in citrus, Vaughn notes that the weather’s effect on citrus has helped tighten up the California navel market and allowed most who were carrying inventory to clear the floor. On the last clear day before the storm, Trinity Fruit picked five days' worth of mandarins in one day. Quality challenges have been reported, including bruising, pin rot, decreased shelf-life and conditions unsuitable for harvesting crews,” says Shaw. “Multiple inches of rain fell on the California Coast (Santa Maria and Oxnard) as well as in Orange County. In strawberry production, Mark Shaw, VP of operations for Markon notes that harvest was brought to a halt in Santa Maria, Oxnard, Orange County and Coachella, California on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. We’re fortunate to be positioned on well-drained land and expect a quick recovery following the wet weather.” “The Santa Maria Valley has experienced heavy rainfall and strong winds over the last few days, resulting in standing water at multiple locations on our land and limiting access to harvest,” adds Matt Hiltner of Babé Farms, Inc. “We’re working around the affected areas and continuing to fill orders. The muddy fields, standing water and rain have all led to gaps in picking. We also harvest everything by Brix so while we’re trying to harvest as much as we can, we can’t just clean all the trees out.” You couldn’t go in so that limited production too. “Some fields were muddy and we could only pick on the outskirts of the orchard. “The last clear day we picked five days of fruit in one day,” says Ganajian. Vaughn says it was picking heavily for two days during the gap in rainstorms over the weekend.ĭitto Trinity Fruit. However, seeing what was coming, growers were preparing for the rain. Ganajian says some fields were muddy and only the outskirts of the orchard could be picked. “All this rain has recharged the underground water and decreased the bicarbonates in the soil that makes for a healthier orchard,” says Ganajian. It can’t rain enough as far as we’re concerned,” says Ganajian of Fresno, California-based Trinity Fruit Sales, which has some 3,400 acres of mandarins. “We are hoping this rain will help size up the fruit as we have been fighting with small fruit all season long.” However it is affecting us in a small way,” says Derek Vaughn of Johnston Farms in Edison, California. “In California, we never say bad things about the rain. Following a day of evacuation orders and flash flood warnings in parts of California after heavy wind and rain, where is this leaving California agricultural production? It’s a storm that looks to be hitting the entire state.
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