Citrus season has arrived! Throughout the area, our clients are receiving the first deliveries of blood oranges and Murcott oranges. The orange season got off to a rough start according to the California citrus sector. However, the fruit is rounding into shape as it gets sent out to distributors. ThirdLeaf NW prides itself on delivering the freshest, most local fruit. As we get to sniffle season, our attention naturally turns to citrus.
Import citrus season doesn’t deliver
This time last year; lower-quality, import citrus flooded the market and stuck around when consumers didn’t take to them. Discerning eaters seemed to reject those citrus creating something of a backlog for California growers. The citrus sector had never seen import tonnage this large before.
“This is one season that has had a series of dynamics that has affected the year,” Jeff Nelsen of the California Citrus Mutual said. The aforementioned imports fed into that problem, but a perfect storm of issues led to a weak season growers have only just recovered from.
Through the sun and rain
On top of the import confusion among customers, the weather has played hell with California’s growing season. Normally, heavy rainfall and early snow is beneficial to all agriculture but the timing of the rainfall has made it difficult to harvest.
It’s been a year of extremes as not only have harvesters dealt with rain they aren’t used to, but during the summer orchards endured more than 30 consecutive days of temperatures exceeding 100 degrees. This lead to smaller oranges, but with those gone larger fruits are starting to come out for public consumption.
CCM think that if the spring stays mild like this previous summer and autumn then we could be seeing oranges coming through into July 2020.
However long oranges are on the market we will be delivering them to offices and businesses throughout Seattle. We’d love to give you a trial of our services today!