Continuing a theme that has played out with virtually every California crop this year, Westside melons should hit the market early this season, at least a week ahead of the usual harvest date.

Steve Patricio, president of Westside Produce in Firebaugh, CA, hesitated in calling the start date “earlier than normal” because he said there doesn’t appear to be a normal anymore.

Several California crops were shipped earlier than ever in 2014 and then broke that record this year. Melons are in a similar situation. The first California melons were shipped out of Brawley in the California desert on April 27. Barry Zwillinger of Legend Produce in Glendale, CA, said that was the earliest he had ever seen. A week later, he was saying the same thing about the start of the Yuma melon deal.

Patricio said it appears as if the Westside deal — named for being on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley — will get started out of Huron as early as June 22. He noted that’s a week to 10 days ahead of what was typically considered normal. Speaking to The Produce News on June 4, Patricio said the plants and fruit were looking excellent in this time period about three weeks prior to harvest.

California is awash in drought talk and it seemingly can’t be avoided in any discussion of the state’s fruit and vegetable crops. Zwillinger said his company has planted acreage in a more northern district, near Sacramento, in an effort to avoid water-shortage problems.

Patricio said there is no denying California is in a drought, but he added that “the crops find the water,” meaning growers might have to overcome challenges but they tend to find acreage that has water. Just as Zwillinger’s company moved north, other growers moved west or east or found land with well water when surface water wasn’t going to be available.

“Melons are a short season crop and low water use crop,” said Patricio. “And they do well on well water.”

Consequently, he said, melons are an alternative crop for many growers who do not believe they have enough water for their grain or tomato crops. “I’ve heard it said that for two acres of tomatoes (with regard to water), you can grow three acres of cantaloupes,” he said. “And for one acre of cotton you can grow two acres of melons.”

From seed to harvest, cantaloupes take about 75 days, and after watering early in the growth cycle they don’t need much water. Tomatoes take much more time to grow and much more irrigation.

Patricio said there will be no shortage of cantaloupes to sell during this summer season. “There is going to be promotable volume from the end of June through the middle of October if the weather cooperates in September and October.”

Patricio said that historically in the cantaloupe business about once out of every four or five years some rain in September or October results in an early end to the deal. Both fortunately and unfortunately, growers have not had to deal with that for the last four years. Obviously they want to be able to sell their crop as long as they can, but California’s drought is growing to epic proportions and there won’t be too many tears shed if a late summer or early fall rain signals the end of this current dry spell.