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Shipments of Idaho russet potatoes during the first half of January were off significant because of the extreme cold.
Temperatures below zero in Idaho made it very difficult, sometimes impossible, to haul russets from cellars to plants without the spuds freezing. Although Idaho potato loadings were good through the holidays was good, then the cold hit and movement was stifiled by temperatures ranging from 10-below zero to 5-above zero.
As in California, temperatures in Idaho began rising around January 15 and now are returning to normal.
While Idaho russet loadings were off during the cold, red potato shipments were brisk out of the Red River Valley of North Dakota and Minnesota. Red River Valley packing sheds are reported to be working at capacity to get potatoes shipped. This is despite having a much bigger crop in 2012-13. Potatoes remaining in valley storages as of mid-January are similar to what they were at this time a year ago. The Red River Valley should complete mlost of its shipments around the middle of May, which is normal.
In Colorado’s San Luis Valley, russet shipments are averaging a moderate 375 truck loads per week…..In central Wisconsin about 500 truckloads of russet potatoes are being shipped weekly.
San Luis Valley potatoes – are grossing about $1900 to Chicago.
Idaho potatoes – grossing about $5100 to New York City.
Produce shipments in the east are generally light, which is normal for this time of the year. However, with most dry freight loads not paying nearly as well as fresh and fruits and vegetables, it doesn’t hurt to take a look at what perishable are out there for hauling.
Central and southern areas of Florida are shipping in light volume mixed vegetables, melons, tomatoes, oranges, grapefruit and other citrus. Besides light volume, it makes it even more difficult because some Florida items are not compatible for loading with other Floridia commodies. For example, you can load tomatoes and grapefruit on the same truck in the 55 to 60-degree temperature range, but not not oranges and tomatoes because oranges should be maintained in a colder temperature range.
It may be necessary to fill out your Florida load with something such as cabbage and greens out of south Georgia. Again, cabbage and greens will work on the same load with oranges, but not grapefruit and tomatoes.
Further up the east coast, North Carolina is the nation’s leading shipper of sweet potatoes. There are several sweet potatoes shippers, mostly found from northeast of Raleigh to southeast of Raleigh.
In New York state, storage onions are coming out of Orange county. There’s also some onions, plus cabbage coming out of the central and western regions of New York.
Finally, northern Maine is shipping light to moderat amounts of potatoes from Aroostrock County.
South Georgia vegetables – grossing about $2200 to Philly.
North Carolina sweet potatoes – about $2000 to Orlando.
Available loads for citrus by produce haulers from Florida continue to shrink each month, although the declines are relative small. In the monthly estimate by the USDA, the Florida citrus in now down to 142 million boxes, a drop of nearly three percent.
Most of the decline for lthe 2012-13 crop is with Valencias, which was lowered to 3 million boxes to 76 million from the December estimate of the USDA. The early to mid season oranges decreased 1 million boxes to 66 million boxes.
Monthly estimates by the USDA with revisions will continue until the end of the season in July.
Among the reasons cited for the declines are rainfall, disease, fruit size and a significant dropping of fruit off the trees, which has made it quite tricky making crop forecasts. Most of the decrease is due to citrus droppping of the trees in the the early to middle season Valences, combined with the fruit being small in size.
Florida shipped about 146.6 million boxes of oranges during the 2011-2012 season.
The Sunshine state has litle change in the numbers for specialty fruit and grapefruit, with all numbers remaining the same. About 1.1 million boxes of tangelos and 3.8 million boxes of tangerines are forcast to be shipped.
Florida should load about 18 million boxes of grapefruit, according to the USDA.
Central Florida citrus – grossing about $2400 to New York City.
Those string of cold nights in California around January 10-15 should not adversely affect strawberry shipments from the state. That’s the good news. The bad news for produce haulers is, like so many other crops, strawberry volume is pretty light this time of the year.
Growers in Ventura County and the Santa Maria distrist implemented frost protection measures, keeping the damage to a minimal. There was use of wind machines, spraying strawberry fields with water and, in some cases, helicopters hovered above the crop to mitigate damage.
One major strawberry shipper, California Giant Inc., reports its shipments could be reduced by 15 percent due to freeze damage to its crop.
Temperatures are expected to return closer to normal in the second half of January. Meanwhile, the shipping gap on strawberries is expected the week of January 21.
On a higher note, fruit that is scheduled for shipping the busy Valentine’s Day period should benefit from the cold, because of the stage of dormacy the plants were in during the weather. This should make the plants hardy when it is time for picking.
Growers in Ventura County and the Santa Maria District who did not protect crops and suffered damage will likely be set back up to four weeks.
Southern California strawberries and other produce – grossing about $4700 to Atlanta.
Potatoes certainly are not the exotic item in the fresh produce industry for hauling, but they are safer to haul than most fruits and vegetables. Rates can be exceptionally low of potatoes that are competing against many other produce items in high volume farming areas when the competition for trucks is keen.
However, spuds can look pretty darn attractive to a trucker in dire need of a load, or in more remote areas where there is less compettion from other produce items or dry freight. This “hardware” item” also is more hardy, resulting in less quality issues – at least most of the time. This time of the year volume on many produce items is lower, if not existant than at some other times.
For those people investing in potatoes to make money at the farming end, it often is feast or famine. Too many years, overproduction of potatoes leads to low prices and investors losing money. However, every few years when those folks tire of losing money, the crop acreage is reduced and those remaining potentially hit some big time profits. The next thing you know, investors see the big profits and figure they can joint the “fun.”
This is one of those year when too many potatoes are out there – which means more loading opportunities for truckers.
The current potato crop is estimated to be at least 12 million hundred weight (cwt) than a year ago. There have been about nine percent more potatoes already shipped this season compared to the last one. The biggest percent of increases have come from the Red River Valley of North Dakota and Minnesota, as well as from Oregon and Wisconsin. However, when talking sheer volume, no one comes close to Idaho, which ahs already shipped 1.5 million more cwt. than a year ago.
Idaho potatoes – grossing about $4200 to Atlanta.
Wisconsin potatoes – about $2850 to Dallas.
Grand Forks, ND potatoes – about $1800 to Chicago.
After five nights of freeze warnings produce truckers will now have to wait and see not if there was damage to citrus they would otherwise haul, but how much damage. Citrus growers in California’s San Joaquin Valley are starting to assess damage to mandarins and lemons.
It the fourth night of the freeze (Jan. 13) before temperatures plunged into the low- and mid-20s. That is too cold for wind machines and watering to protect some crops from frost. The anti-frost action were able to raise the temperature to 29 degrees F, which is high enough to protect navel oranges. However, a 32-degree freeze can cause freeze damge to mandarins. The freeze resistance of lemons is between those of mandarins and navels.
At this point, at least it seems the freeze damage will be much less severe compared to frequent freezes last year and in 2007. Higher sugar levels in the crops,due to a mostly mild winter this season, also should help to protect against the cold.
Citrus groves in Ventura and Riverside counties should be spared damage because they are closer to the Californias coastline. While celery loadings from Ventura county are expected to be slowed by the cold weather, no freeze damage is expected.
Overall, no matter where shipments in California originate, expect volume to be lighter than normal, more erratic and somewhat unpredictable for the next couple of weeks.
Expect a similar situation from the Arizona desert around Yuma, as well as for Mexican produce crossing the border at Nogales.
San Joaquin Valley produce – grossing about $6000 to New York City.
California’s San Joaquin Valley may have dodged the proverbial bullet relating to freezes that occurred being late last week, before a warm up started on Monday, January 14. The weather could eventually affect loading opportunities in the valley for produce haulers.
There was a rainstorm that hit parts of the valley, which created a potential for ice mark on mandarins and navel oranges, but this will take time before showing up. San Joaquin Valley navel oranges are about 25 percent harvested. There is not word yet on possible damage to lemon, vegetables and other items.
Meanwhile cold weather has slowed shipments of desert vegetables from California’s Coachella and Imperial valleys, as well as from the Yuma district in nearby Arizona. Also adversely affected are West Mexico vegetables crossing the border at Nogales, AZ. This product is normally moving into peak volume at this time.
The overall cold temperatures in the West have not only temporarily reduce produce volume, but has resulted in rate decreases as more refrigerated equipment has become available.
Sweet Potato Shipments
The leading states which ship sweet potatoes are North Carolina, California, Mississippi and Louisiana. Total volume for this season is about 26.5 million hundredweight (cwt), which is down only about two percent from 2011.
While the total USA sweet potato acreage of 126,600 acres is down two percent, higher yields from exisiting acreage actually mean there is one percent more product for hauling.
Southern California produce – grossing about $4200 to Chicago.
Sweet potatoes from Eastern North Carolina – about $1500 to Atlanta.
Apples are one of the most consistent produce items for hauling on a year around basis. It can be storage of many months, allowing shippers to only order a truck when there is a buyer for the product. Apples are hardy and usually pose fewer problems as far as quality is concerned. That reduces your chances of claim or load rejection.
During the cold winter months, apples are not subjected to the whims of mother nature such as those faced by vegetable row crops an citrus. Here is a overview of apple loading opportunties, which is mostly in Washington state.
Despite severe crop losses from weather in Michigan and New York, huge crops in Washington state, and to a lesser degree in Pennslvania means plenty of volume for shipping through the end of the season in late summer.
Shipments of eastern apples were pretty much finished by the New Year, with the exception being in Pennsylvania. Rice Fruit Co. in Gardners, PA had a record crop and expects to continue shipping into early summer, which is normal.
As of January 1st about 90 million bushels of fresh-market apples remained to be shipped, which is 10 percent more than last year at the same time. That January total is 11 percent higher than the five-year average.
The amount apples remaining to be shipped are all up compared to a year ago for all five major varieties. Those varieties are fujis, red delicious, galas, golden and granny smiths.
Washington state, Yakima Valley apples – grossing about $5,500 to New York City.
If you are looking to load produce out of California’s San Joaquin Valley, you’ll need to pay attention to the weather as a damaging freeze is possible beginning tonight (Friday, January 11th) through Monday night (January 14th) and potentially even into the middle of the week.
The low temperatures are particularly possible from Tulure county southward to Kern County, but might even happen in Madera and Fresno counties.
The freeze could be especially harmful to vegetable items and citrus.
The weather guessers are still doing just that – guessing, but it has produce growers getting out their wind machines in case of a worst case scenario. Depending upon which weather forecast you believe, temperatures could hit the low to mid 20s.
Damage depends upon how low the temperatures drop and for how many hours those temps stay below freezing.
Anyway, this is a heads up for produce haulers in California looking for loads in the days ahead – particularly in the San Joaquin Valley.
A story by by Joshua Burd of NJBiz states Hunts Point Terminal Produce Market today called a news report wrong that said a tentative deal had been reached for the market to stay in New York City, rather than move to New Jersey.
Thousands of refrigerated big rigs deliver fresh fruits and vegetables to the South Bronx facility each week.
“At our board meeting on Tuesday, January 8th, our board voted to reject an offer from the City of New York to modify the current lease extension terms at our location in the Bronx. A Crains.com story from Tuesday afternoon has incorrectly indicated that the co-op has reached a ‘tentative’ agreement with the city in regards to this offer to modify our lease extension terms. This is not true,” Robert Leonard, a spokesman for the market, wrote in an email to NJBIZ this afternoon.
New Jersey officials also seemed baffled by the news report. “Our understanding is that Hunts Point’s board did not accept New York’s proposal, which means their location decision is still unsettled and New Jersey is still in the game,” said Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno through a spokesman. “I look forward to continuing to work together with Hunts Point to persuade them New Jersey is a great alternative to their cramped and outdated facilities in the Bronx.”
Crain’s New York Business reported Tuesday that the co-op and the city had reached a tentative deal to keep the market in the Bronx for at least a decade. The story quoted a co-op representative, who apparently spoke before the board meeting, plus unnamed sources. The market’s board of directors still had to vote on the agreement at a formal meeting, the report said.
To read the rest of the story, check out: NJBiz
Shipments of Idaho russet potatoes during the first half of January were off significant because of the extreme cold.
Temperatures below zero in Idaho made it very difficult, sometimes impossible, to haul russets from cellars to plants without the spuds freezing. Although Idaho potato loadings were good through the holidays was good, then the cold hit and movement was stifiled by temperatures ranging from 10-below zero to 5-above zero.
As in California, temperatures in Idaho began rising around January 15 and now are returning to normal.
While Idaho russet loadings were off during the cold, red potato shipments were brisk out of the Red River Valley of North Dakota and Minnesota. Red River Valley packing sheds are reported to be working at capacity to get potatoes shipped. This is despite having a much bigger crop in 2012-13. Potatoes remaining in valley storages as of mid-January are similar to what they were at this time a year ago. The Red River Valley should complete mlost of its shipments around the middle of May, which is normal.
In Colorado’s San Luis Valley, russet shipments are averaging a moderate 375 truck loads per week…..In central Wisconsin about 500 truckloads of russet potatoes are being shipped weekly.
San Luis Valley potatoes – are grossing about $1900 to Chicago.
Idaho potatoes – grossing about $5100 to New York City.
Produce shipments in the east are generally light, which is normal for this time of the year. However, with most dry freight loads not paying nearly as well as fresh and fruits and vegetables, it doesn’t hurt to take a look at what perishable are out there for hauling.
Central and southern areas of Florida are shipping in light volume mixed vegetables, melons, tomatoes, oranges, grapefruit and other citrus. Besides light volume, it makes it even more difficult because some Florida items are not compatible for loading with other Floridia commodies. For example, you can load tomatoes and grapefruit on the same truck in the 55 to 60-degree temperature range, but not not oranges and tomatoes because oranges should be maintained in a colder temperature range.
It may be necessary to fill out your Florida load with something such as cabbage and greens out of south Georgia. Again, cabbage and greens will work on the same load with oranges, but not grapefruit and tomatoes.
Further up the east coast, North Carolina is the nation’s leading shipper of sweet potatoes. There are several sweet potatoes shippers, mostly found from northeast of Raleigh to southeast of Raleigh.
In New York state, storage onions are coming out of Orange county. There’s also some onions, plus cabbage coming out of the central and western regions of New York.
Finally, northern Maine is shipping light to moderat amounts of potatoes from Aroostrock County.
South Georgia vegetables – grossing about $2200 to Philly.
North Carolina sweet potatoes – about $2000 to Orlando.
Available loads for citrus by produce haulers from Florida continue to shrink each month, although the declines are relative small. In the monthly estimate by the USDA, the Florida citrus in now down to 142 million boxes, a drop of nearly three percent.
Most of the decline for lthe 2012-13 crop is with Valencias, which was lowered to 3 million boxes to 76 million from the December estimate of the USDA. The early to mid season oranges decreased 1 million boxes to 66 million boxes.
Monthly estimates by the USDA with revisions will continue until the end of the season in July.
Among the reasons cited for the declines are rainfall, disease, fruit size and a significant dropping of fruit off the trees, which has made it quite tricky making crop forecasts. Most of the decrease is due to citrus droppping of the trees in the the early to middle season Valences, combined with the fruit being small in size.
Florida shipped about 146.6 million boxes of oranges during the 2011-2012 season.
The Sunshine state has litle change in the numbers for specialty fruit and grapefruit, with all numbers remaining the same. About 1.1 million boxes of tangelos and 3.8 million boxes of tangerines are forcast to be shipped.
Florida should load about 18 million boxes of grapefruit, according to the USDA.
Central Florida citrus – grossing about $2400 to New York City.
Those string of cold nights in California around January 10-15 should not adversely affect strawberry shipments from the state. That’s the good news. The bad news for produce haulers is, like so many other crops, strawberry volume is pretty light this time of the year.
Growers in Ventura County and the Santa Maria distrist implemented frost protection measures, keeping the damage to a minimal. There was use of wind machines, spraying strawberry fields with water and, in some cases, helicopters hovered above the crop to mitigate damage.
One major strawberry shipper, California Giant Inc., reports its shipments could be reduced by 15 percent due to freeze damage to its crop.
Temperatures are expected to return closer to normal in the second half of January. Meanwhile, the shipping gap on strawberries is expected the week of January 21.
On a higher note, fruit that is scheduled for shipping the busy Valentine’s Day period should benefit from the cold, because of the stage of dormacy the plants were in during the weather. This should make the plants hardy when it is time for picking.
Growers in Ventura County and the Santa Maria District who did not protect crops and suffered damage will likely be set back up to four weeks.
Southern California strawberries and other produce – grossing about $4700 to Atlanta.
Potatoes certainly are not the exotic item in the fresh produce industry for hauling, but they are safer to haul than most fruits and vegetables. Rates can be exceptionally low of potatoes that are competing against many other produce items in high volume farming areas when the competition for trucks is keen.
However, spuds can look pretty darn attractive to a trucker in dire need of a load, or in more remote areas where there is less compettion from other produce items or dry freight. This “hardware” item” also is more hardy, resulting in less quality issues – at least most of the time. This time of the year volume on many produce items is lower, if not existant than at some other times.
For those people investing in potatoes to make money at the farming end, it often is feast or famine. Too many years, overproduction of potatoes leads to low prices and investors losing money. However, every few years when those folks tire of losing money, the crop acreage is reduced and those remaining potentially hit some big time profits. The next thing you know, investors see the big profits and figure they can joint the “fun.”
This is one of those year when too many potatoes are out there – which means more loading opportunities for truckers.
The current potato crop is estimated to be at least 12 million hundred weight (cwt) than a year ago. There have been about nine percent more potatoes already shipped this season compared to the last one. The biggest percent of increases have come from the Red River Valley of North Dakota and Minnesota, as well as from Oregon and Wisconsin. However, when talking sheer volume, no one comes close to Idaho, which ahs already shipped 1.5 million more cwt. than a year ago.
Idaho potatoes – grossing about $4200 to Atlanta.
Wisconsin potatoes – about $2850 to Dallas.
Grand Forks, ND potatoes – about $1800 to Chicago.
After five nights of freeze warnings produce truckers will now have to wait and see not if there was damage to citrus they would otherwise haul, but how much damage. Citrus growers in California’s San Joaquin Valley are starting to assess damage to mandarins and lemons.
It the fourth night of the freeze (Jan. 13) before temperatures plunged into the low- and mid-20s. That is too cold for wind machines and watering to protect some crops from frost. The anti-frost action were able to raise the temperature to 29 degrees F, which is high enough to protect navel oranges. However, a 32-degree freeze can cause freeze damge to mandarins. The freeze resistance of lemons is between those of mandarins and navels.
At this point, at least it seems the freeze damage will be much less severe compared to frequent freezes last year and in 2007. Higher sugar levels in the crops,due to a mostly mild winter this season, also should help to protect against the cold.
Citrus groves in Ventura and Riverside counties should be spared damage because they are closer to the Californias coastline. While celery loadings from Ventura county are expected to be slowed by the cold weather, no freeze damage is expected.
Overall, no matter where shipments in California originate, expect volume to be lighter than normal, more erratic and somewhat unpredictable for the next couple of weeks.
Expect a similar situation from the Arizona desert around Yuma, as well as for Mexican produce crossing the border at Nogales.
San Joaquin Valley produce – grossing about $6000 to New York City.
California’s San Joaquin Valley may have dodged the proverbial bullet relating to freezes that occurred being late last week, before a warm up started on Monday, January 14. The weather could eventually affect loading opportunities in the valley for produce haulers.
There was a rainstorm that hit parts of the valley, which created a potential for ice mark on mandarins and navel oranges, but this will take time before showing up. San Joaquin Valley navel oranges are about 25 percent harvested. There is not word yet on possible damage to lemon, vegetables and other items.
Meanwhile cold weather has slowed shipments of desert vegetables from California’s Coachella and Imperial valleys, as well as from the Yuma district in nearby Arizona. Also adversely affected are West Mexico vegetables crossing the border at Nogales, AZ. This product is normally moving into peak volume at this time.
The overall cold temperatures in the West have not only temporarily reduce produce volume, but has resulted in rate decreases as more refrigerated equipment has become available.
Sweet Potato Shipments
The leading states which ship sweet potatoes are North Carolina, California, Mississippi and Louisiana. Total volume for this season is about 26.5 million hundredweight (cwt), which is down only about two percent from 2011.
While the total USA sweet potato acreage of 126,600 acres is down two percent, higher yields from exisiting acreage actually mean there is one percent more product for hauling.
Southern California produce – grossing about $4200 to Chicago.
Sweet potatoes from Eastern North Carolina – about $1500 to Atlanta.
Apples are one of the most consistent produce items for hauling on a year around basis. It can be storage of many months, allowing shippers to only order a truck when there is a buyer for the product. Apples are hardy and usually pose fewer problems as far as quality is concerned. That reduces your chances of claim or load rejection.
During the cold winter months, apples are not subjected to the whims of mother nature such as those faced by vegetable row crops an citrus. Here is a overview of apple loading opportunties, which is mostly in Washington state.
Despite severe crop losses from weather in Michigan and New York, huge crops in Washington state, and to a lesser degree in Pennslvania means plenty of volume for shipping through the end of the season in late summer.
Shipments of eastern apples were pretty much finished by the New Year, with the exception being in Pennsylvania. Rice Fruit Co. in Gardners, PA had a record crop and expects to continue shipping into early summer, which is normal.
As of January 1st about 90 million bushels of fresh-market apples remained to be shipped, which is 10 percent more than last year at the same time. That January total is 11 percent higher than the five-year average.
The amount apples remaining to be shipped are all up compared to a year ago for all five major varieties. Those varieties are fujis, red delicious, galas, golden and granny smiths.
Washington state, Yakima Valley apples – grossing about $5,500 to New York City.
If you are looking to load produce out of California’s San Joaquin Valley, you’ll need to pay attention to the weather as a damaging freeze is possible beginning tonight (Friday, January 11th) through Monday night (January 14th) and potentially even into the middle of the week.
The low temperatures are particularly possible from Tulure county southward to Kern County, but might even happen in Madera and Fresno counties.
The freeze could be especially harmful to vegetable items and citrus.
The weather guessers are still doing just that – guessing, but it has produce growers getting out their wind machines in case of a worst case scenario. Depending upon which weather forecast you believe, temperatures could hit the low to mid 20s.
Damage depends upon how low the temperatures drop and for how many hours those temps stay below freezing.
Anyway, this is a heads up for produce haulers in California looking for loads in the days ahead – particularly in the San Joaquin Valley.
A story by by Joshua Burd of NJBiz states Hunts Point Terminal Produce Market today called a news report wrong that said a tentative deal had been reached for the market to stay in New York City, rather than move to New Jersey.
Thousands of refrigerated big rigs deliver fresh fruits and vegetables to the South Bronx facility each week.
“At our board meeting on Tuesday, January 8th, our board voted to reject an offer from the City of New York to modify the current lease extension terms at our location in the Bronx. A Crains.com story from Tuesday afternoon has incorrectly indicated that the co-op has reached a ‘tentative’ agreement with the city in regards to this offer to modify our lease extension terms. This is not true,” Robert Leonard, a spokesman for the market, wrote in an email to NJBIZ this afternoon.
New Jersey officials also seemed baffled by the news report. “Our understanding is that Hunts Point’s board did not accept New York’s proposal, which means their location decision is still unsettled and New Jersey is still in the game,” said Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno through a spokesman. “I look forward to continuing to work together with Hunts Point to persuade them New Jersey is a great alternative to their cramped and outdated facilities in the Bronx.”
Crain’s New York Business reported Tuesday that the co-op and the city had reached a tentative deal to keep the market in the Bronx for at least a decade. The story quoted a co-op representative, who apparently spoke before the board meeting, plus unnamed sources. The market’s board of directors still had to vote on the agreement at a formal meeting, the report said.
To read the rest of the story, check out: NJBiz