Snow Camping

It happens every spring; Jay Gillette and his wife Kelley take a snow camping trip into the local mountains. This trip they were in the mountains for seven days and enjoyed the Sierra Nevada’s at their finest. We have included more photos of their trip on the photos page, and if you look close you will see Tom Mulholland’s plane approached to make a provision’s drop to make the trip more enjoyable. Wine was dropped in a rubber bag and came through without a dropped spilled, the mandarins, avocados and cookies (all in the same bag) did not fare as well and became a very unique salad. Jay said the weather was perfect and the skiing was even better.

Petal Fall

This is the time of the year known in citrus as "petal fall".  The blossoms have ran their course and have now fallen from the trees.  This is a very important time to watch the trees for citrus thrips that do the most cosmetic damage to citrus. Once the blossoms all drop, these tiny pests will move to the fruit and attack the rind of the orange (currently the size of a pea) and can scar the fuit which leads to downgrading to choice or juice. 

This is also the time of the year that can make or break next year's crop.  If the weather is very hot over the next six weeks, fruit will drop; however if it stays cools like we have experienced so far this spring, too much fruit will "set" and this could lead to a large crop of smaller fruit.  Only time will tell.  Stay tuned.

 

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.

Blossoms and Wild flowers

We have posted some videos on YouTube taken while flying around Orange Cove, Orosi, Dinuba, Kingsburg and Reedley. This is the time of year when the tree fruit blossoms are at their peak and the wildflowers are beginning to show color on the mountain sides.  The foothills in the video border the Orange Cove and Orosi areas.  Our thanks to Tom Mulholland (Mulholland Citrus) for taking us on our annual Blossom Trail flight.

 

 

Valencia CASS estimate

CASS released its 2009-10 California Valencia Orange Objective Measurement Report this morning estimating the state crop at 34 million which is 21 percent above the 28 million for last season.  Sizes are about average and set per tree is up from 435 last season to 704 this season.  Assuming 80% of the crop is in the central valley, the D1 2009-10 crop is 27.2 million.  Based upon CCGA member estimates, D1 would be 22.1 million.  For entire report click the link to the CASS website.

http://www.nass.usda.gov/Statistics_by_State/California/Publications/Fruits_and_Nuts/201003valom.pdf