The fall season is increasingly important for the California table grape industry, as many growers have substantially increased their plantings for the late season in recent years and continue to do so.

At Sunview Marketing International in Delano, CA, “we have a big program” for fall, and “we have always had a big program for many years,” said Scott Boyajian, director of sales, in an interview with The Produce News Aug. 6.

“We have a lot of Scarlet Royals and a lot of Autumn Kings,” Boyajian said. Both will have increases this year. “Those are the two areas we have the most growth.”

The company, which is exclusive marketing agent for Sunview Vineyards of California, also has “a big Crimson program,” he said. “Crimsons are pretty stable” and have been for the last five or six years for Sunview, with about the same amount of tonnage each year.

In addition, “we do have Autumn Royals” for the late season, he said. “Most of them go offshore, but we will have some for the domestic market as well, probably through November.”

For Sunview, Autumn Kings were expected to start the first of September, with the harvest continuing through November, Boyajian said. He said that the company expected to continue shipping Autumn Kings until the first or second week of January.

Similarly, the company expected to pick Crimsons through November and ship them into January.

Scarlet Royals had already been going for a week, “and we will probably pick Scarlets” through the first part of October “and ship them through the first part of November,” he said.

Sunview has also planted some newer varieties, but those are mainly for the early to mid-season, Boyajian said. Among them are two proprietary varieties — a red seedless variety called Gem and a green seedless variety called Stella Bella. Both were currently being harvested.

The Stella Bella came out of the company’s in-house breeding program and is characterized by “large berry size, crisp texture, elongated shape, superb sweetness and long shelf life,” according to a company sell sheet.

After six years in development, “we have gone into a major planting program on it the last two years,” Boyajian said. It started in late July and was expected to be available into September.

The Gem harvest started in early August and should continue into early October, he said. Gem is a very large, elongated grape with “very, very good flavor.”

With the increases in late season varieties, “there will be plenty of fruit all the way through Christmas and into the new year,” Boyajian said.

He went on to encouragecustomers to “stay with California” because “California is going to have really good-quality fruit this year in the late season, so I think they will be very happy with the fruit quality.”