Strong FOB prices and a lack of fruit from competing international sources made the 2014/15 lemon season a profitable one for US growers in spite of increased production.
“Last year was one of the best for grower returns in a couple of decades,” said Mark Golden of Umina Brothers – a major exporter of US citrus. “It was kind of a ‘perfect storm’ where short crops in both Chile and Argentina and elsewhere helped the market stay fairly strong all season.”
Golden notes fruit “utilisation” was excellent as the relatively short lemon supply meant a higher percentage of lemons could be sold in the fresh market reducing the need to divert product to processors who typically pay lower prices.
The 2015/16 season also appears to be shaping up positively for the US lemon industry.
“It’s been pretty good deal so far but probably won’t end up quite like last year,” said Golden.
After an acceptable start to the season in the Southern California desert, cold weather will likely bring a relatively early end in the San Joaquin Valley - the next phase of the deal.
“Our fruit quality, sizing and availability (from the desert) was good,” noted John Carter of the Limoneira Company. “The quality of the fruit strength in the San Joaquin Valley has (also) been good, but the rain and cooler weather caused fruit to ripen more quickly.”
As the 2015/16 season transitioned to the coastal growing regions of Ventura and Santa Barbara counties in January, orchards received a thorough dousing of much-needed rain, which is expected to help fruit quality.
“The rain should leach-out salts that have been building up in the soil for the last several years due to the drought,” said Golden. “Hopefully we’ll see a lot more storms over the next few months.”
According to Golden, Southern California growers were picking only high color fruit to start the season, leaving most of the lemon crop on the tree to grow in size over the next few months.
“District 2 (coast) fruit looks to have good size and strength,” said Carter. “We will have to pick some yellow fruit early due to cold temperatures in some orchards, but overall this crop was not adversely affected by the recent frosts. The rain we have received in January will help the fruit grow.”
