Peaches, onions and carrots thrive in Colorado

Carrots are in full swing in Colorado, some onions will start shipping in mid-September and Palisade peaches are winding down for the season, grower-shippers say.

“It was a weird year,” said Jordan Hungenberg, CEO at Hungenberg Produce Inc., Greeley, Colo.

Early wet weather set the company’s carrot crop behind by about two weeks.

The crop looked “very nice” in late August, though, as the company packed 600,000 to 700,000 pounds of carrots every day.

“We are packing every kind of carrots you can imagine,” Hungenberg said.

Hungenberg Produce specializes in conventional and organic cello and baby carrots but also puts up specialty packs like shredded carrots, matchsticks, coin cuts, chips and snack packs.

Besides servicing its Colorado customers, the company ships to surrounding states like Utah, Kansas, North Dakota and South Dakota, as well as Chicago, Phoenix, Florida and Maine, he said.

The company has had particular success with organic carrots.

“They’re a big deal, in Colorado especially,” Hungenberg said.

Demand for carrots tends to pick up in fall, when the weather cools, he said.

“Everybody eats a few more carrots,” he said. “We’re looking forward to that.”

Fagerberg Produce Co. Inc., Eaton, Colo., began harvesting onion transplants in late August and expected to kick off its direct-seed onion harvest in early September, said Colby Cantwell, sales manager.

“They’re looking really good,” he said.

The harvested onions will cure for a while, and shipping should start by mid-September.

The company offers white, yellow and red onions along with Colorado Sweets, which “seem to grow in popularity all the time,” Cantwell said.

Harvest will continue until mid-October, and onions will ship out of storage until mid-March.

Growing conditions were cool and wet in May and June, Cantwell said. “But when July got here, we pretty much had ideal temperatures the rest of the way.”

Quality has been good, he added.

Fagerberg Produce installed a new palletizer this year to speed up the packing process and continues to look at additional labor-saving equipment for the packing shed, he said.

Talbott Farms Inc., Palisade, Colo., continues to recover from an October 2020 freeze that knocked out a large part of its peach crop, said Charlie Talbott, a partner at the company with brothers Bruce and Nathan.

The company has replaced about 50,000 trees that were killed during the freeze.

“The good news is, we had a lot of young [trees] that were not severely damaged,” Talbott said.

This is the first year that volume is back to the level of the 2019 crop.

“That’s encouraging,” he said.

Replants will probably increase volume by 25% over the next few years, he added.

This year’s crop was running five to seven days behind schedule and should be finished by Sept. 27, he said.

Talbott said he was pleased with the quality of the peaches and the packouts.

“We had a great spring for growing,” he said. “It was cool and mild through June.”

When its peach crop is finished, Talbott Farms kicks off its wine grape program, which launched in 2000.

The firm also grows a few red and green table grapes from late August until mid-September “just for fun,” Talbott said. They’re not sold commercially, but they’re available at Talbott Farms’ retail market.