Shipments are starting a transition period from the deserts of California and Arizona to the San Joaquin Valley’s Huron district, as well as the Salinas Valley for vegetables. At least for the time being your best loading opportunities for veggies is still the desert. Like most areas of the country and Mexico, California has had cooler than normal weather, which is slowing down the transistion. But it will happen, within the next few weeks as we approach the month of May.
Iceberg and leaf lettuce shipments have been going pretty heavy recently from Yuma, while volume is substantially less out of California’s Imperial Valley. Whether there will be a gap in shipments as the transition to northern growing areas takes place, is still a little hazy.
When loading desert vegetables you still need to watch what’s going into the trailers. Lettuce in particular continues to be affected from the recent hot weather and there may still be some heat related damages. Crops suffered some dehydration, and wilting on leafy items. Also look for tip burn, internal burn and even sunscald on the outer leaves of Iceberg and romaine.
Meanwhile, strawberry shipments continue out of Southern California, along with good volume of avocados.
Southern California produce – grossing about $7300 to Boston.