Spring Time Busy Time

The citrus blossoms are pushing and this means one thing - our most busy time of the year.  The navel harvest is about 75% complete and we are moving into our late varieties.  The fruit condition remains excellent and the fruit is as strong as we have seen for this time of the year.  We have been harvesting our blocks of young trees to stay ahead of the large sizes.  We are picking Gillettes, Late lanes, Autumn gold, Powell and Chislett varieties.  The fruit is firm, has good color and no real regreening. 

We have also began harvest of our valencias.  The crop is 20% more than last year with average to smaller sizes.  The flavor is excellent with high brix and an excellent taste profile.  The fruit is round with good texture.

This is also the busiest time of year for our farming operations.  We our busy with fertilizer applications both on the ground and foliar sprays.  This is also the time of year when we begin pruning, topping and hedging to provide more sunlight into the middle of the trees and reduce dead wood that can damage next year's crop.  This link is to a video of one of the groves being mechanically hedged.