With harvest still a more than a month away, Brenda Thomas, president and general manager of Orchard View Farms in The Dalles, OR, said it was difficult to pinpoint a date when first cherry loads would leave the family-owned facility.

But Ms. Thomas said that when volume hits later in the season, she expects to see an increase over last year’s numbers.

U.S. watermelon fields are pumping out all-time-high volumes of product this season. Growers of other commodities in Mexico, Texas, Florida and Georgia have produced bumper crops as well. But the problem is there are not enough workers on hand to harvest those crops.

For years, labor has been one of the produce industry's thorniest issues, but it has lately become priority one in the Southeast. Some Florida farmers this spring left crops unpicked or opened their fields to the public due to a lack of workers.

The 2011 produce season is underway and should be highlighted by good quantities of high-quality produce.

W.P. Rawl, a leading producer of fresh bulk and packaged greens based in Pelion, SC, is looking to grow it greens category by introducing new consumers to leafy greens and inspiring existing customers with new usage ideas.

Bill Lipman, the last remaining founding member of the family that launched the Six L’s Packing Co. tomato empire in Immokalee, FL, died May 19 at age 88.

As with most crops in California’s San Joaquin Valley this year, white-flesh peaches and nectarines are running later than normal due to unusually cool spring weather.

There are no official estimates on start dates for the industry and no official estimates on crop size, either by variety or in the aggregate, this year, due to the discontinuation of marketing orders for peaches and nectarines in California.