Another normal volume shipping season is seen for Ohio vegetables, while a double digit decline is seen for Northwest cherries. Meanwhile, Arkansas produce shipments get underway in July.
Ohio Vegetable Shipments
Michael Farms of Urbana, Ohio will begin shipping cabbage and green beans in by late June, sweet corn in mid-July and potatoes in early August.
Holthouse Farms of Willard, Ohio has been shipping radishes and cilantro since late May, lettuces since early June, and just started squash. Chili peppers will come on in early July. The company also ships bell peppers and eggplant and will have hard squash in the fall.
Buurma Farms of Willard, Ohio has been loading radishes since Memorial Day, and has since added mustard greens, collard greens, kale, dill, cilantro and other items. The company has just started shipping red leaf, green leaf and romaine.
NatureFresh Farms of Leamington, Ontario starts shipping from its Delta, Ohio, greenhouse at the end of September and goes through the beginning of July 2019.
NatureFresh grows beefsteak, cherry, grape, roma and cocktail tomatoes, as well as tomatoes on the vine.
Northwest Cherry Shipments
The crop estimate for Northwest cherries is for 22.6 million 20-pound cartons, down 15 percent from a year ago.
In 2017 there were shipments of 26.5 million cartons. An average crop size is 22 million boxes.
Stemilt Growers Inc. of Wenatchee, WA picked its first cherries about a week ago.
California is wrapping up cherry shipments and the crop will be down significantly from last year — about 3 million boxes compared to a record 9.6 million boxes last year. Normal is about 6 million boxes.
Arkansas Produce Shipments
H.C. Schmieding Produce Co. LLC of Springdale, AR expects to start watermelon shipments around the 4th of July and go through the first week of August. The company expects to have light volumes of corn the first week of July, running through the end of the month.
Gem Tomato & Vegetable Sales of Boca Raton, FL is now shipping Arkansas tomatoes and will continue for another month.
Arkansas has roughly 1,200 acres of watermelons, 800 acres of tomatoes.