A difficult California growing season characterized by rain, snow and unusually low winter temperatures is finally giving away to more promising weather and more shipments of table grapes, strawberries and cherries.
Grape Shipments
The California table grape season starts in the Coachella Valley with harvesting just getting underway.
Harvesting in the San Joaquin Valley (Arvin) should begin in late June or early July. Early expectations are the 2023 crop will be similar or slightly larger than last season’s 95.1 million 19-pound boxes.
Autumn King, Scarlet Royal, Sheegene-20, flame and Sheegene-21 varieties accounted for 47% of the total volume in 2022. Exports accounted for 30% of the volume last season. The top three markets included Canada, Mexico and Taiwan.
Strawberry Shipments
Strawberry volume began recovering from adverse weather in early April, with shipments much lower than last year.
As of the week ending April 1, California shipments of conventional and organic strawberries totaled 8.5 million trays, down from 20 million at the same time in 2022.
Fall-planted acreage for 2023 winter, spring and summer production was 31,852 acres, up from 30,499 in 2022. About 45% of the acreage is in the Watsonville growing region, 34% is in the Santa Maria area and 20% is in Oxnard. Although some acreage was lost due to a levee break along the Pajaro River in March, about 95% of the strawberry crop was undamaged from the storm.
Cherry Shipments
California’s cherry crop will come on seven to 10 days later than usual, with picking beginning in late April or early May. California is the first state to ship cherries each year.
King Fresh Produce LLC of Dinuba, CA expects there will be good volume by May 20, with loadings continuing until about the third week of June.
Growers project this year’s crop will be slightly larger than last year’s 5.2 million 18-pound boxes, which is down from about 10 million boxes the year prior, mostly because of an unusually warm winter.