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As we distribute this bulletin, we are hoping it’s the beginning of a dry spell for the rest of January in California and mild conditions in our other growing regions. We know this is crunch time for Valentine’s Day orders and the opportunity to build sales for berries (especially stems) as they are in consumer demand. We are doing our best to get accurate estimates and keep you all informed as to availability for the next two weeks. With warm and dry conditions in the current forecast, we should have availability of stems for the upcoming holiday. Below is our best guess on crop and weather forecasts.
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Florida: Weather has been a challenge with heat and humidity last week. We had a front move through last night and early this morning. As a result fields are showing water damage so we are now assessing what damage we might have and determine when harvesting will resume.
Mexico: Fruit quality is looking good with very few minor defects. Some fruit a little bit on the deep color side but overall appearance is good and the QA team is diligent in inspecting all loads. Zamora weather is favorable. High 77 and low 45, partly cloudy, soft winds and cold during nights and early mornings. Overall quality is great, the main issue for our QA team is watching for lighter fruit due to cold weather. These attached photos show fruit inspected at Bland on Friday and freshly packed trays from the field.
Oxnard: Rained out last week with significant water in the furrows on Friday morning. More rain over the weekend and early this morning didn’t help, but a dry and warm forecast ahead is very promising which should help with clean up in the fields removing that red fruit you can see on the plants in the photos, and a return to harvesting as temperatures warm up. Despite the wet furrows, the plants are healthy and the fruit is there.
Fruit from this morning - very limited harvest as we wait for showers to pass through.
Blueberries: Our QA team has been focused on keeping soft fruit out of the packaging following the early extreme temps we had in this region. As we return to more normal weather patterns we look forward to a good finish in this region with fruit arrivals through March.
For up-to-date weather conditions in all of our growing regions, click on the region below. Wunderground.com is our go-to weather resource for fast and reliable weather updates.