HMC News – September 2024
We are finally seeing full harvests on Krissy, a variety we had to walk away from in several fields after last year’s tropical storm. In addition to Krissy, we’re harvesting Scarlet Royals, Timco, Ivory, and Great Green. It appears overall volume has moved up a bit due to good color movement on the reds and temperatures in the low 100’s/high 90’s. Temperatures will sneak back up this week for a bit, but our hope is that this is the last heat wave of the season. We will continue to harvest these mid-season varieties in full force and anticipate a smooth transition into our late season table grape varieties.
We are continuing to move through our Krissy and Scarlet Royal red seedless table grapes. Once these varieties wrap up, they will be quickly followed by our Allisons and Timcos. Our current green seedless harvest is dominated by Great Green, with Autumn King to follow in October and November. As the weather shifts from hot to mild, dropping 30 degrees in a one-week time span, we begin to prepare for any upcoming rainstorms. In the grapes this entails covering vines, beginning with our late harvest grapes, with plastic to protect them from the storms. The plastic is placed over the top of the canopy in each row to shield the fruit from light to heavy rains.
As we continue to wind down our different tree fruit commodities, our peaches will begin to pick up the slack. Soon we will start harvest our last peach variety of the season. It will be available in good volume and quality well into October. It still feels like summer in the valley as the temperatures creep back into the 90’s with the potential for a triple digit day or two, so it is only fitting that it tastes like summer for a few weeks longer as well. Trees that were harvested back in the Spring are being topped, which is removing new growth from the top of both traditional and high-density trees, and hedged, which is cutting back new growth that is protruding into the rows of our high-density orchards.
2024 Harold McClarty and Drew Ketelsen participated in an F3 (Farming. Food. Future) panel this month. The objective of F3 is to provide support for technology that will help keep growers competitive. In a labor-intensive industry, with costs accelerating at an uncontrollable rate, it is important to look at solutions for the future. Harold and Drew were instrumental in helping get this program funded and will continue participating and volunteering their time to ensure we have a future in our commodities. HMC believes strongly in innovation, attempting to make jobs more productive and less difficult. Our future depends on programs like these.
