California growers expecting good, typical season

Good weather this winter should result in plentiful supplies of top-notch spring produce from California’s grower-shippers.

Boskovich Fresh Food Group grows a wide range of products year-round in Oxnard, Calif., including cabbages, Chinese mix and bunched items like parsley, cilantro and spinach, said sales manager Russ Widerburg.

The company grows celery in Oxnard from November through June, when the deal transitions to Santa Maria.

Boskovich now is growing head and leaf lettuce in Yuma, Ariz., and will move to Santa Maria by early April.

And some items like radishes and beets will switch from Mexico to Oxnard in mid-April.

The first part of the winter has been marked by an oversupply and relatively cheap markets, Widerburg said.

“Until the Yuma program is finished, there’s really no sign of any lack of supply of anything,” he said. “There hasn’t been any weather to affect anything.”

Markets were in single digits, he said in late February.

Planting has been on schedule with no rain delays.

“It’s been pretty dry the last month or month-and-a-half,” he said.

There was some early rain and some light cold spells, Widerburg said, “but nothing to really harm any of the crops in the long term.”

Quality also was good.

“Quality is not a concern because there hasn’t been any weather,” he said.

Widerburg expects good demand across the board for Easter, April 12, but he said the celery market has been depressed since Thanksgiving.

Last year, celery was in the media spotlight thanks largely to the juicing craze, and supplies were somewhat tight.

Supplies are plentiful this year, and markets have plummeted.

Cartons of two dozen stalks from Oxnard had an f.o.b. price of mostly $40.95-42.55 on Feb. 28, 2019. This year they were mostly $7.06-8.05, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Brawley, Calif.-based Five Crowns Marketing is California’s largest grower of sweet corn, said Daren Van Dyke, director of marketing. And this year’s crop could come on about a week earlier than last year’s, which was knocked back by a post-Valentine’s Day freeze.

Growing weather has been ideal this year, he said.

“I would say this crop looks exceptional,” he said.

In fact, Van Dyke said this year’s crop is one of the best he’s ever seen.

“It looks very uniform, very even.”

Sometimes parts of a field are more mature than others, or there are pollination problems, he said. But not this year.

“We are super encouraged by how the crop looks right now.”

Five Crowns has sweet corn year-round, starting in Brawley in April, then moving to Coachella in May, followed by Mendota, Tracy, Arizona, and Washington.

The company now is sourcing from Sinaloa, Mexico.

Five Crowns also is one of the owners of the proprietary seed for Origami vine-ripe, extended-shelf-life melons, which Van Dyke calls “the most unbelievable cantaloupe on the market.”

It’s scheduled to start May 1, followed by variety melons and honeydews by May 10-15.

The company will offer seedless watermelons from Arizona starting in early June.

“We’ll have a huge July Fourth program,” he said.

That deal then will move to Mendota and Tracy before transitioning to Mexico for the winter.

Sunnyside Packing Co.’s spring offerings are “the counter-seasonal equivalent to Nogales (Ariz.),” said Todd Hirasuna, general manager at the Selma, Calif.-based company.

Sunnyside will have eggplant, bell peppers, soft squash, hard squash and a few green beans and a small onion program.

Hirasuna said California appeared to be slipping into a dry spell after record rainfall last year.

“It’s definitely a drought year,” he said.

The season started off promising, Hirasuna said. Then the rain stopped.

“It’s been pretty dry and pretty warm.”

Ideally, rain would fall from November to February, he said.

He was not wishing for rain during the spring planting season, when precipitation “becomes more of a nuisance than anything.”

“When trying to protect and nurture a little seedling, rain is not your friend at this point,” he said in late February. 

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