Posts Tagged “Colorado peach shipments”
There should be significantly more produce loading opportunities from the Rocky Mountain State, primarily due to a great snowpack and a lot of favorable growing conditions.
Depending on location, snow packs in the Rocky Mountains have been anywhere from 130 to 150 percent of normal, filling up reservoirs, and easing concerns over drought conditions.
Colorado Peach Shipments
Peach shipments from Colorado’s western slope have been underway since the last week of July. Loadings should continue until after Labor Day, and a few limited loadings could be available into the third week of September. Last year, peach volume was off 25 percent because of weather factors. This season loadings are expected to only be down 10 to 15 percent from what is considered a full crop. There also are some loadings available with apple and pears, although its is much smaller than with peaches.
Rocky Ford Melon Shipments
Cantaloupe shipments, as well as honeydew are now coming out of Colorado’s Rocky Ford area. Loadings should be available for another month.
Colorado Vegetable Shipments
San Luis Valley potato shipments could be up as much as eight percent this season. A combination of 54,200 acres of potatoes planted, combined with plentiful water supplies have helped. While limited potato shipments started from Northeastern Colorado a week ago, most volume comes out of the San Luis Valley. SLV harvesting generally gets underway after Labor Day and wraps up in October, with shipments continuing into following the summer.
The Northeastern part of the state also is shipping items ranging from onions to sweet corn and squash.
Colorado peach shipments are expected to get underway in the middle of July.
Peach shipments originate from relatively few shippers on the Western Slope of Colorado’s, beautiful Rocky Mountains, generally in the Grand Junction area. Shipments should continue through mid August and possibly up to the first of September.
There also will be a limited amount of cherries coming on around the first of July. The apricot crop apparently will amount to few, if any this year. The Grand Junction area also will start shipping watermelons in mid July.
Colorado ranks sixth nationally in peach shipments, behind top ranked California, then South Carolina, Georgia, New Jersey and Pennyslvania.
Looking a bit further down the road, Colorado’s Western Slope will have apple shipments and pear shipments starting around the end of August.
Here’s a round up on tomato shipments from Southern California, Baja, as well as the Wisconsin potato loading outlook, and finally peaches from Colorado’s Western Slope.
There has been light to modern shipments of roma, round, grape and cherry tomatoes from the San Diego/Oceanside area of California since June, with peak loadings expected be from mid-October through November. A similar situation holds true for the nearby Baja pennisula in Mexico. Quality is reported good and shippers are having no problem finding customer to ship tomatoes since demand is excellent, in part due to poor weather and tomato growing conditions on the East Coast.
Wisconsin Potato Shipments
Wisconsin potatoes for the 2013-14 season should have higher quality than a year ago when there was a high percentage of culls, and grade-out, which increases the chances of claims for a produce hauler.
Wisconsin potato observers are predicting a high-volume of shipments this season, with most of the volume being with russets….The Badger state’s red potato loadings have been in good volume since mid-August. Russets have been moving in good volume since late August.
Colorado Peaches
Colorado peach shipments will be in far smaller volumes this season due to spring freezes in and around Palisade, CO. Peach shipments in Colorado run from about mid-July through September. Loading are expected to be down to as much as 30 to 40 percent of normal in the Palisade area, making it the smallest peach crop since 1991.