Crops & Markets
(UPDATED COVERAGE, 4:09 p.m.) Approximately 10% of California’s navels and 20% of its mandarins have been damaged by a record number of freezes during the 2011-2012 growing season.
In addition, growers have spent about $100 million on frost protection measures this season, said Bob Blakely, director of industry relations from Exeter-based California Citrus Mutual. Many growers have spent two or three times as much on frost protection as they do in a typical season, Blakely said.
The effects of a mid-January freeze on California strawberries, meanwhile, were expected to be minimal.
The silver lining for citrus, Blakely said, is that cold weather has meant better color and rind quality, though a lack of rain has affected fruit growth. As of Jan. 25, about 70% of navels had yet to be harvested.
Demand for size 72 navels and larger was very strong the week of Jan. 23, but there were ample supplies of smaller fruit, Blakely said.
“There’s a pretty big price break between 72s and 88s,” he said.
Rains Jan. 22-23 were expected to help fruit size, and also to improve flavor, Blakely said. The forecast for Jan. 27-Feb. 5 called for dry, mild conditions in California citrus-growing areas, Blakely said.
Los Angeles-based Sun Pacific Shippers expects its murcott mandarin production to be off 10-15% this season due to the cold weather, said Barney Evans, the company’s vice president of sales.
But because production was expected to be higher this season than last, the losses won’t likely affect Sun Pacific’s promotions of the popular Cuties brand of murcotts, Evans said.
“It basically puts us at the same numbers as last year, so there will be no shortage of fruit,” Evans said.
Sun Pacific still expects to ship Cuties through May, and Evans doesn’t expect any retailers to pull ads because of the freezes.
The latest round of freezes occurred Jan. 16-18, when temperatures dipped into the low 20s for hours at a time in some citrus groves north of Fresno.
Strawberries
The freezes Jan. 16-18 spared strawberry plants in Oxnard and Orange County for the most part, but volumes in Santa Maria could be affected through mid-February, according to an early estimate from the California Strawberry Commission.
Cindy Jewell, marketing director with California Giant Inc., Watsonville, Calif., said Jan. 26 that the company’s volumes weren’t affected by the mid-January freezes. California Giant was sourcing from Oxnard, Mexico and Florida the week of Jan. 23.
“There’s plenty to go around, the quality’s good and we’re crossing our fingers for Valentine’s Day,” Jewell said.
Other grower-shippers didn’t seem to be significantly affected by the freezes, she said.
“There may have been some pockets in Oxnard” that were hard-hit, she said. “It was just a short-term blip for a lot of guys.”
Santa Maria can tolerate frost in mid-January, Jewell said, because plants aren’t ready for harvest at that time of year.
Other grower-shippers said Jan. 19 that little or no crop losses were expected from the Jan. 16-18 freezes.
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