Bill Lipman, the last remaining founding member of the family that launched the Six L’s Packing Co. tomato empire in Immokalee, FL, died May 19 at age 88.

As with most crops in California’s San Joaquin Valley this year, white-flesh peaches and nectarines are running later than normal due to unusually cool spring weather.

There are no official estimates on start dates for the industry and no official estimates on crop size, either by variety or in the aggregate, this year, due to the discontinuation of marketing orders for peaches and nectarines in California.

Aaron Matthew Lovelace, the director of operations and a partner in Yuma, AZ-based BlueSkySearch.com, died unexpectedly on Sunday, May 15, after a brief illness.

WASHINGTON — The potato lobby has been frustrated with U.S. Department of Agriculture policies in recent months, but it received some good news in March. The American Heart Association has certified Idaho potatoes as heart-healthy, permitting the spuds to bear the association’s heart-check mark.

Potato groups have been turning up the heat in recent months to try to convince USDA to rethink a Jan. 13 proposal that would restrict servings of white potatoes to comply with revised meal patterns and nutrition requirements for the National School Lunch and School Breakfast programs.

A demand-exceeds-supply situation led to sharply higher prices for Iceberg lettuce the week of May 16, with the situation expected to remain in place until at least early to mid-June.

Several other fruit and vegetable crops were also experiencing strong markets as unseasonably cool weather and rains cut into the volume of supplies from California.

WEATHER

Salinas, CA: The persistent stretch of cold weather was joined by rain May 14-17. Daytime highs recently have been in the upper 50s to low 60s with intermittent rain showers. The rain is expected to end May 18, but daytime temperatures will remain unseasonably cold through May 24.

Bakersfield, CA: Daytime highs will remain unseasonably cool through May 24 with daytime highs only in the mid- to upper 70s. The recent string of late-season rains will give way to mostly sunny skies beginning May 19.