The Chilean plum season will finish with a flourish at Oppy, when the exciting new fruit known as RR1 arrives in April.

RR1 is a late-harvesting, long-storing plum with yellow flesh that transforms to light red as it ripens. First planted in Chile 2010, RR1 follows the popular Angelino variety in availability and can sustain the plum season well into May.

FirstFruits Marketing of Washington ended its fourth annual Take a Bite Out of Hunger program at select retailers with a collective donation of 200,000 pounds of apples to local food banks. This brings the total program donation to just under 1 million pounds over four seasons.

Robert Dunlop, whose career at The Oppenheimer Group spanned nearly a quarter century, died March 18 following a battle with cancer. He was 65.

Until recently, the majority of ocean-shipped fruits and vegetables imported from foreign countries have had to enter the United States through ports in the Northeast.

ST. LOUIS — The Midwest produce industry needs a focal point for preparing for the future, according to Mike Kemp.

Kemp retired in January from Market Fresh Produce LLC, located in the southwest Missouri town of Nixa. He was associated with Market Fresh for four years. For the first year-and-a-half, he was the chief operating officer. Then he worked as an independent business analyst for Market Fresh.

Kemp has lived in St. Louis for 11 years and met there with The Produce News in late February to discuss his retirement and concepts that interest him going forward.

California Citrus Mutual has partnered with the California Citrus Research Board to offer six workshop sessions on the biggest issues facing the industry today. Of those, securing sufficient water resources and preventing the spread of citrus greening, or HLB, are by far the greatest concerns of the industry.

Felicia Marcus, chairman of the State Water Resources Control Board, addressed California’s water woes and how the board proposes to address the current crisis without hindering growers’ ability to farm profitably.