RIO RICO, AZ — Early April will see the launch of an increased watermelon program for Malena Produce Inc., headquartered here.

Gonzalo Avila, Malena’s vice president and general manager, indicated that this “will be a larger program than we have marketed in the past with volume starting in early April and continuing through mid- to late-June.” Malena will also be offering honeydew melons during the same timeframe.

Malena has a wide-reaching spring vegetable program, which includes late green bell peppers from southern Sonora, running from early March to mid- to late-April. Spring deals shipping through Nogales out of Sonora follow the winter season out of the Culiacan, Sinaloa. “We will also have a nice spring shade house cucumber deal from Sonora starting in early March and running until the end of May,” Avila said.

For the first time Malena will have a southern Sonora shade house eggplant deal which will commence shipments in late March and continue through May, and will be a great addition to Malena’s premium eggplant program.

Gonzalo Avila, Malena’s vice president and general manager, said that this ‘will be a larger program than we have marketed in the past with volume starting in early April and continuing through mid- to late-June.’The 2015 Mexican grape program for Malena will kick-off with Perlettes in early May, followed by the bulk of their table grape program which will run from May 10 until about the end of June.

“When the Sonoran grape deal begins, the green grape pipeline from Chile is empty, while red grapes from Chile arrive into the U.S. into late May, depending on the markets in Europe and Asia,” Avila said.

“Mexico’s growing grape volume is heavy towards reds, but still has a large amount of green grapes offering several varieties,” he continued. “Malena’s grape deal will be expanding over the next several years, especially during the 2017-18 seasons. This year’s total volume will be up slightly from 2014.”

Malena Produce is well known for its high-quality eggplant, which peaks in volume from February through March. A cold spell in Culiacan over the holidays resulted in a slow start to the eggplant season but volumes are steadily increasing. Malena offers both field and shade house eggplant. Field production is from November into late April while its shade house production runs from mid-December through June.

“As far as total volume is concerned, it is a 50/50 split between the two types of growing methods, the advantage of offering both is the shade house offers more consistent supply while the open filed product has earlier supplies for the market,” Avila said.

“Shade varieties do better later in the season, as you are able to avoid direct exposure to the hot sun,” he added. “Recently we have increased the volume in the shade houses, but we will always offer field-grown eggplant as well.”

Avila stated that “it has been a tough squash season so far,” as the cold spell which slowed the eggplant production “hit the squash volumes really hard and supplies will most likely not rebound until mid-March and run through late May.”

While eggplant is the largest volume item at Malena Produce, squash is close behind, followed by bell peppers.