The Southeast Produce Council has planned a full program of business and social events for its sixth annual conference and trade show, scheduled for March 5-7 in Tampa, FL.

The council expects attendance to approach 1,000 for this year's event, which would match last year's event in Orlando, FL, according to SPC Executive Director Terry Vorhees. "We'll have somewhere between 900 and 1,000. That's where the numbers fell last year," Mr. Vorhees told The Produce News March 3.

CHARLESTON, SC -- Looking for new avenues to promote watermelons, the National Watermelon Promotion Board is coming to the crossroads of the world, New York City's Times Square.

GLENNVILLE, GA -- Raymond D. Bland, a founder of Bland Farms and one of the early sweet onion farmers in this famed onion production region, died Feb. 19. He was 81.

"He had been disabled for about four years - bedridden," said Delbert Bland, his only son with whom he founded Bland Farms LLC in 1982. Born in 1927, Raymond Bland grew up and remained in the Vidalia onion- producing area of south Georgia all his life. "People around here don't migrate around too much," said Michael Hively, chief financial officer and general manager of Bland Farms.

CHARLESTON, SC -- Two of the larger firms in the watermelon industry - Borders Melon Co. Inc. and Melon 1 Inc. - are now utilizing YottaMark Inc.'s HarvestMark solution for traceability.

Redwood City, CA-based YottaMark made the announcements during the National Watermelon Convention, held here Feb. 18-22 at the Francis Marion Hotel.

SALINAS, CA -- Industry veteran Ken Silveira has joined Kingsville, ON-based Mastronardi Produce Ltd. as president of its new division, Mastronardi West.

Mastronardi Produce is opening a 20,000-square-foot warehouse here, with additional office space connected to it. The company will begin shipping product out of Salinas by April 1, Mr. Silveira told The Produce News Feb. 24.

The Salinas office will carve out a U.S. region designated as west of Denver, with distribution in California, Arizona, Oregon and Washington as its primary focus, Mr. Silveira said.

PARLIER, CA -- Official estimates for the 2009 California peach, nectarine and plum crops will not be made until April after fruit has actually set on the trees. But the California Tree Fruit Agreement, at its winter committee and board meetings held here Feb. 19 approved budgetary assessments based on a tentative and somewhat "conservative" preliminary estimate of a combined total of 50 million boxes of fruit for the season.