California summer fruit: normal timing, good volume, better sizing, excellent quality
California summer fruit: normal timing, good volume, better sizing, excellent quality
Official estimates for the 2008 California peach, plum and nectarine crops werel set to be adopted April 29 at joint meetings of the Peach Commodity Committee, the Nectarine Administrative Committee and the California Plum Marketing Board. But industry sources suggest that overall crop volume for the three commodities combined will be similar to last year's 56 million boxes.
Timing is also expected to be similar to last year, although temperature trends before harvest could adjust that by a few days either way.
Perhaps the biggest difference between this year's crop and last year's is that there is the potential for much better fruit sizing this year.
In peaches and nectarines in particular, most growers are seeing good to heavy fruit sets, which give them the opportunity to thin the marble-sized fruit selectively, removing the less developed pieces and leaving the ideal number of the best pieces on each "hanger" (the young branches that produce fruit) to get the desired size.
Fewer pieces of fruit on each hanger allow the tree to put more energy into growing the fruit, resulting in larger fruit size. Growers typically leave from two to six pieces of fruit per hanger, depending on the variety, the size of fruit desired and other considerations.
However, weather is also a key factor. When the weather gets too warm, the fruit does not size as well, regardless of thinning practices. Cooler (but not excessively cold) weather, on the other hand, allows the fruit to continue growing for a longer time and, therefore, to grow larger.
Growers say that temperatures the first 30 days after fruit set are the most critical in determining how well the fruit will size, and conditions this year have been close to ideal.
"Hopefully everybody does their job and makes sure that they thin the [trees] real well, because it gets harder and harder every year to sell small fruit," said Julian Lipschitz, a salesman at Dayka & Hackett LLC in Reedley, CA.
"We seem to have had a decent amount of [winter rainfall], good chill hours and a good spring," said Bob Maxwell, a salesman at Kingsburg Orchards. "In the absence of any weather catastrophes" such as a late spring hailstorm, "we will have a normal to a little above-normal crop. I think if people thin properly, ourselves included, we should have good sizes of very good quality fruit."
"The idea, I think, is to do a good job of thinning and get the size as big as we can," Mike Aiton, senior vice president of sales and marketing for Sun World International LLC in Bakersfield, CA, said April 10. "That is what is going on right now. ... Hopefully there is plenty of fruit out there, so if we knock enough to the ground, we will get the size that the customers are looking for."
Growing conditions so far "for all of the summer fruits have been outstanding," and there appear to be good crops, he said.
"It is going to be very expensive to thin the crop this year," said David White, president of Trinity Fruit Sales Co. in Fresno, CA. "It was a beautiful winter and a great bloom," leading to a good set, "so we are putting a lot into the ranches in order to create the [desired] size, quality and consistency."
There will be "a lot of opportunity this summer on peaches and nectarines, both white and yellow, and plums, to promote summer fruit all summer long," he said.
Timing is also expected to be similar to last year, although temperature trends before harvest could adjust that by a few days either way.
Perhaps the biggest difference between this year's crop and last year's is that there is the potential for much better fruit sizing this year.
In peaches and nectarines in particular, most growers are seeing good to heavy fruit sets, which give them the opportunity to thin the marble-sized fruit selectively, removing the less developed pieces and leaving the ideal number of the best pieces on each "hanger" (the young branches that produce fruit) to get the desired size.
Fewer pieces of fruit on each hanger allow the tree to put more energy into growing the fruit, resulting in larger fruit size. Growers typically leave from two to six pieces of fruit per hanger, depending on the variety, the size of fruit desired and other considerations.
However, weather is also a key factor. When the weather gets too warm, the fruit does not size as well, regardless of thinning practices. Cooler (but not excessively cold) weather, on the other hand, allows the fruit to continue growing for a longer time and, therefore, to grow larger.
Growers say that temperatures the first 30 days after fruit set are the most critical in determining how well the fruit will size, and conditions this year have been close to ideal.
"Hopefully everybody does their job and makes sure that they thin the [trees] real well, because it gets harder and harder every year to sell small fruit," said Julian Lipschitz, a salesman at Dayka & Hackett LLC in Reedley, CA.
"We seem to have had a decent amount of [winter rainfall], good chill hours and a good spring," said Bob Maxwell, a salesman at Kingsburg Orchards. "In the absence of any weather catastrophes" such as a late spring hailstorm, "we will have a normal to a little above-normal crop. I think if people thin properly, ourselves included, we should have good sizes of very good quality fruit."
"The idea, I think, is to do a good job of thinning and get the size as big as we can," Mike Aiton, senior vice president of sales and marketing for Sun World International LLC in Bakersfield, CA, said April 10. "That is what is going on right now. ... Hopefully there is plenty of fruit out there, so if we knock enough to the ground, we will get the size that the customers are looking for."
Growing conditions so far "for all of the summer fruits have been outstanding," and there appear to be good crops, he said.
"It is going to be very expensive to thin the crop this year," said David White, president of Trinity Fruit Sales Co. in Fresno, CA. "It was a beautiful winter and a great bloom," leading to a good set, "so we are putting a lot into the ranches in order to create the [desired] size, quality and consistency."
There will be "a lot of opportunity this summer on peaches and nectarines, both white and yellow, and plums, to promote summer fruit all summer long," he said.
