Growers were reporting good quality on California strawberries as the season passed the halfway point in early July.
As of July 14, growers had picked 121.8 million trays of the fruit, up from 112.2 million trays last year at the same time, but down from the 128 million trays shipped in 2018, according to the California Strawberry Commission.
The season peaked around July 1 for Watsonville, Calif.-based Well-Pict Inc., said Jim Grabowski, director of marketing.
“But there are still a lot of berries around,” he said in mid-July.
Shorter-than-usual early-season crops of some other summer fruits, like watermelons and cherries, resulted in a robust market for summer strawberries, he said.
On July 17, trays of eight 1-pound clamshell containers of medium-size strawberries from the Salinas area had an f.o.b. price of mostly $16-18, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
A year earlier, the price was mostly $9-10.
“It’s a fairly strong market right now, which is not normally the case at this time of the summer,” Grabowski said.
But he didn’t expect those prices to stick around for long.
As supplies of watermelons and cherries pick up and other summer fruits come on, like peaches, plums, nectarines and grapes, strawberry prices undoubtedly will drop, he said.
Berry quality, size and flavor have been good this season, with no unusually high temperatures as of mid-July, Grabowski said.
“It’s been a good year so far,” he said.
When the Watsonville-Salinas crop starts to trail off, Well-Pict will pick up its new fall strawberry crop out of Oxnard from mid-September through mid-November, he said.
Quality of those berries is expected to be good as well.
In Santa Maria, Oxnard-based Bobalu Berries was gearing up to kick off its fall crop, said Cindy Jewell, who handles marketing for the company.
Bobalu ships out of an area that is actually north of the main Santa Maria growing region in a coastal location similar to Salinas, Jewell said.
The fall crop is planted in three stages, she said.
“It won’t all come off at the same time.”
Picking should start in mid-August and continue until early November.
Unlike the spring/summer crop, which consists of the monterey and cabrillo varieties, the fall crop is made up of portola strawberries, she said.
This year’s crop has been a good one so far, Jewell said.
“It’s been a great season,” she said, with mild weather that is conducive to good quality and size.
Bobalu Berries expects to have slightly more acreage this year than last and plans to launch a program in Salinas-Watsonville in 2021, she said.
Back in Watsonville, California Giant Berry Farms reported good quality on its conventional and organic strawberries as a result of mild weather.
“Fruit is firm with only occasional dark fruit,” according the company’s July 17 crop update.
Volume was expected to slowly increase in the coming weeks.
“Labor is still tight, but ranches are able to keep up due to the cooler weather and lower volumes,” the newsletter said.
Some ranches already were starting to work the ground in preparation for next year.
Cal Giant growers in Santa Maria were seeing major improvements in fruit quality with “Much less bruising, and the bronzing is gone,” the newsletter said.
“Fall crop new plantings look good and have been de-blossomed. All of these plants are looking healthy and vigorous — a good sign of the upcoming crop that is expected to start mid-August.”
Organic fruit quality also continued to improve with cooler temperatures at Cal Giant.
“Some full red fruit that is firm, with much less bruising than we’ve been seeing,” the company said.
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