With the total volume of the Hass avocado crop expected to come in around 300 million pounds this year, down from around 500 million pounds in 2013, “one of the things you have to really be concerned about is the expectation that the California market is going to be short of fruit,” said Robert (Bob) Lucy, president of Del Rey Avocado Co. Inc. in Fallbrook, CA, in an interview with The Produce News March 19.

“It is going to be a smaller California crop,” he said. “But the season is going to be a little bit more compressed, so although there is less volume there still will be very good volume for the weeks from May through August.”

Racked cold storage at Del Rey’s facility. (Photo by Brian Woods)Some also have an expectation that because of California’s smaller crop, prices are going to be “extremely high,” he said. “I think they are going to be very good. I don’t doubt that,” he said. “But I think that we have to be careful that we don’t get too carried away with what the prices are going to be” not only for California fruit but for avocados from Mexico and from Peru during that same period.

“It should be a good year” with volume down in California and with the months of June, July and August being the lightest period for Mexico, he said. He does expect that there will be “a great potential for good money” particularly during August and September.

However, there are numerous issues that California growers will be dealing with this year, and some of those could affect harvesting decisions, Lucy said. “Because of weather and because of the drought,” there is a question as to whether some growers “will have the luxury of holding fruit into August and September. We know some farmers who have done some early picking already because they are concerned about holding fruit on the trees.”

Even though the season should “pencil out” nicely if the anticipated volume is divided by the number of weeks in the shipping window, “there could be a change to that,” because “there are a lot of what-ifs here that could affect this thing,” he said. “You have to do what the trees are telling you. If they are telling you you’ve got to harvest the fruit because of cultural reasons, you’ve got to do it.”

In the face of that and other considerations that could affect harvest timing, it is important “for us to try to do the best job of keeping somewhat of an even flow” of fruit into the market, considering not just the California volume but the imported fruit as well. That will involve “keeping an eye on what is going on in Mexico and keeping an eye on the volume coming in from Peru and trying to hit markets that will maximize grower returns both for California and for the Peruvians,” he said. “We need to make sure we don’t overload one particular region.”

One good thing this year is that with the smaller crop, labor is not expected to be a limiting factor, Lucy said. “We don’t feel labor will be quite the issue [that it was last year] because the volume of the crop is down.”

As an example of how water concerns can affect harvesting decisions, “we got a bunch of fruit about a month ago from growers who were topping trees because they were concerned about the drought,” Lucy said. “San Luis Obispo is our most northern area, and we usually try to wait for August, September and October to do our marketing program” for fruit from that area. This year, however, “we actually had fruit that came in from San Luis Obispo in the past month. Was it big volume? No, it really wasn’t. But they had to get going on things.”

Del Rey Avocado also has some Hass avocado growers in the San Joaquin Valley. “We got fruit in from San Joaquin Valley growers in the past week, which is about a month earlier than usual, he said. “The fruit wasn’t damaged. All the fruit is performing perfectly.” But the trees were giving indications that they may not be able to hold the fruit as long as usual, so “for cultural reasons we’ve been having to take some fruit” sooner than the company would have preferred.

It is not unusual to harvest some fruit early for cultural reasons. “My partner Bob Siemer has always gone in and hit our groves pretty hard” early on, taking typically 10 to 15 percent of the fruit off of the tree “to help set up the crop for next year,” Lucy said.

“You sacrifice some weight” on the fruit by doing so, he said. A six-ounce piece of fruit might grow to nine ounces over the summer, so “you try to pick eight-ounce,” which is size 48.

Organic avocados will be “a very big part of our program again this year,” Lucy said. “The overall volume is down, but I don’t think organic volume is down as much as our conventional.” As a result, “our market share may be up a little on organic.”