Curious about Orange Production?

The Public Telvision show, Curiosity Quest , has made an episode about orange production and how the fruit gets from the field to the store.  Curiosity Quest is a kid's show where people send in questions on how things get done, and the show is scheduled to show on various PBS and other stations around the country.  Please check out Jay and the host as they explore Gillette Citrus.  The link to the show's website is below.

 http://www.curiosityquest.org/q507.html

Is it Navel time yet

This year's navel crop seems to taking a little longer to mature than last year.  We estimate a start date of around Novemeber 1st to begin picking in Kern County and about a week later in Fresno County.  The picture below is of washington varieties that will not be harvested until January.  We have seen significant growth over the past 6 weeks so we are now anticipating a better size structure than first predicted.

2011-12 navel crop estimate

The 2011-12 estimate has come in at about 8% off of last year's crop.  This would make this year's crop about an average sized crop as last year was one of the largest crops California has seen in a few years.  The fruit size is better than last year and the season seems to be maturing a little later than last year.

Hot Summer Days

We are in the middle of our typical hot time during the summer, but all in all, it has been rather mild.  We have not seen prolonged periods of time above 100 degrees as we might and have only had a few days above 106 degrees.  How this is going to play out for this coming season's crop is anyone's quess.

The upcoming navel crop, as wll as the moro bloods looks to be lighter than last year.  Most of the "old-timers" are quessing the crop to be 15 to 20 percent off of last year's limb buster, so we should see a manageable crop of navels and less volume of moro bloods than last year. The cara crop is also slightly off, but due to increased plantings and tree growth, we will see an overall increase in volume. 

The navels look to have a good round shape and are sizing well in this summer period.  The official C.A.S.S. estimate comes out in September.  Stay tuuned...

Video Stars?

Mark Gillette and his wife Penny were recently feature in three Sunkist webisodes discussing their family history in the citrus business, the various varieties of citrus available and Penny works with Chef Danhi to prepare a great lunch. 

http://www.youtube.com/user/SUNKIST