HMC News – March 2026
This month our peaches are out of their “jackets” — the protective shuck has split and fallen away — leaving the young fruit fully exposed during one of the most delicate stages of development. At this point, they are highly susceptible to weather-related damage, whether it’s hail, heavy rain, wind, or sudden temperature swings that are so common in the Valley this time of year. A single storm can scar or knock off fruit, directly impacting both quality and yield. To protect this vulnerable crop, we’ve invested heavily in hail netting, and on several ranches this year we’ve installed a new retractable net system that can be unrolled and cover the trees in less than a minute. This allows us to respond quickly to approaching weather events and safeguard the fruit during its most critical window of growth.
We continue to see an abnormally high number of shipments to the East Coast for South American table grapes, with 96% of Chilean departures in week 9 destined for East Coast markets. Peru’s season is essentially complete, with about only 1% of its projected export volume remaining to ship. Chile has shipped approximately 34% of its originally projected volume, but the predicted consensus is that final exports will fall somewhat below initial expectations. Chilean growers have revised their season estimate down 2% to 62.2 million boxes.
Thinning in our tree fruit orchards will begin this month. Thinning is the process of removing excess fruit from the limbs/hangers to ensure each piece of fruit remaining on the tree receives an adequate amount of nutrients for optimal health and growth. In general, each hanger is left with 3 – 5 pieces of fruit. As seen below, our earliest varieties are about the size of a quarter and should be ready to harvest in late April or early May. While it may feel like summer here in the Valley this week, the season is still quite a few weeks away.
Our sunny skies will soon be replaced with rain. Anytime we see a raining forecast in April it comes with a chance of hail. Structures like the permanent netting system below as well as netting systems that are placed and removed each year make us feel a little more comfortable about our ability to protect our crops in inclement weather. This comes with a cost though. While the netting of the temporary cover is less expensive than a permanent structure, the time and labor involved to apply these nets and remove them is extensive. The permanent systems have given us the ability to cover more acreage in a shorter amount of time but are much more expensive, so we continue to balance and cover what we can between our two options.
