Because the grape harvest in California’s San Joaquin Valley has been running earlier than normal and it was appearing, as of early August, that the earliness would continue into the fall varieties, Crown Jewels Produce LLC in Fresno, CA was contemplating starting fall promotions earlier than usual, according to Atomic Torosian, a partner in the company.

“We generally have some big grape promotions the first two weeks of September, but we are having to look at that to see if we can start some of them sooner than that,” Torosian said Aug. 4.

Crown Jewels started picking Vintage Reds “four or five days ago, and last year we started Vintage Grapes the first week of September,” fully a month later, Torosian said. “It is like that one [variety] after another.”

The company started Crimsons before the end of July this year, “which is extremely early,” he said. It was appearing that “all of our fall grapes are going to be moved up two to three weeks early.”

For Crown Jewels specifically, “the season may not linger as late into the month of December as it does some years, or into early January like it did last year,” not only because the grapes are coming off early but because, at least “from our perspective,” they are “moving out fast,” he said.

In addition to grapes, Crown Jewels’ fall fruit program consists of several other commodities.

“We are right in the middle of our pear and apple harvest,” both of which continue into fall, Torosian said.

The pear program consists of Bartlet, Bosc, Forelle, Seckel and StarkCrimson varieties. “There again, we are a couple of weeks early,” he said.”Movement has been very good.”

In apples, the Gala harvest was in progress. “We will be starting Granny Smiths about the middle of August. That is a big variety for us. Then we go into Fujis the first of September” followed by Pink Lady apples around the first of October, he said.

Crown Jewels also has pomegranates. “This Wednesday [Aug. 6], we are going to start harvesting our first pomegranates of the season, the Granada variety. Those will be packed over at Ito Packing, like they have the last five years for us. We are looking forward to a brisk fall pomegranate program. Movement and business was very good last year, with a strong percentage going export,” said Torosian.

Following the Granadas, Crown Jewels will also have the Early Foothill, Early Wonderful and Wonderful varieties. “Typically, we start our wonderful varieties the first of October, but I think we’ll start sometime mid to late September the way everything is going,” he said.

The company, which has a summer and fall melon program from Perez Packing out of the San Joaquin Valley, would soon be going “into the fall mode with cantaloupes and Honeydews,” Torosian said. “We are right in the peak of our harvest,” and those “generally go to about the 9th or 10th of October.”