“We are going to have a pretty good sized stem-and-leaf program this year,” Jeff Olsen, president of The Chuck Olsen Co. in Visalia, CA, said in an interview with The Produce News. That is something “we haven’t had in the past,” so it will be “new for us in the Mandarins.”

The company also has acreage increases in its Mandarin production this year, with the harvest expected to start in early November in the San Joaquin Valley of California.

The Chuck Olsen Co. also expected to start Navel oranges in the San Joaquin Valley around the same time, followed by lemons.

Meanwhile, the company had already begun harvesting lemons out of the Imperial Valley in the Southern California desert. That harvest started around the first of October. “It’s nice to get started on the new crop, because it was a pretty rough July, August and September for everybody” in the lemon business due to “very tight supplies” and just fair quality.

Overall quality is good on the new crop, he said. Crop size is “about normal” in the desert, and “we will carry that probably through March the way it looks.”

The company will also have grapefruit and “a few Minneolas” from the desert during the same period.

In addition to citrus, The Chuck Olsen Co. is involved in a variety of other commodities as a shipper, distributor, exporter and load consolidator for foodservice and retail. But the company’s two major product lines are citrus and grapes, both of which are year-round programs, according to Olsen.

The Olsen family has been in the consolidation side of the business for four generations.

California grapes and California citrus are major components of the program, but during the California grape season the company imports citrus, and during the California citrus season the company imports grapes.

In the San Joaquin Valley, the company has citrus groves in various locations from Bakersfield to Fresno.

In Navels, “I think there are going to be ample supplies” this year, although the size structure is a little smaller than normal overall, Olsen said. That varies from one grove to another, however. “Not everything is small. There are blocks that have bigger fruit, too.”

Olsen said he hopes for “a nice, smooth season” and does not expect any problems during the early part of the season. But “the last three months — April, May and June” will largely depend on how much rain comes this winter and whether there is enough water, after three years of drought, to carry the trees “through that part of the season.”

The lack of water has led to the removal of tens of thousands of acres of citrus industry-wide in California and is said to be a major factor in the smaller fruit sizes being seen in the 2014-15 crop. With Olsen’s own acreage and the acreage the company represents, “we haven’t had any of that as of yet. But it could always happen,” he said.

Even without acreage reductions, he expects yields to be affected by the water situation. On grapes this summer, “we were down more than we had thought,” Olsen continued. “I think a lot of that had to do with the fruit not being able to finish itself to where we could put it in a box.” In citrus, too, “I have to think that we will come up shorter than what the estimate shows. Everything has been a little shorter, so I would think it will follow suit” in Navels as well.

Even so, due to acreage increases, The Olsen Co. does expect an increase in specialty citrus this season.