California organic citrus crop ready to pop

With a solid, across-the-board, fruit set and acceptable growing conditions throughout the summer, California’s organic citrus crop will soon be featured on supermarket shelves with plenty of opportunities for promotion over the next six months.

“The sugar and acids are there. I am very pleased,” said Bianca Kaprelian, owner of Reedley, CA-based Fruit World on Monday, Oct. 28, speaking about her organic navel crop.  “We still need to get some (skin) color and we need some cool nights to do that.”

She reported that the nighttime temperatures were finally dipping into the lows 40s, while a couple of nights in the high 30s would be ideal. “We are hoping by the end of this week we will be picking, but possibly we will have to wait until next week,” she said. “We are telling our customers to be patient and take a deep breath. The fruit is going to dictate when we start.”

But once the season starts, Kaprelian said a good crop of organic navels and all the other citrus varieties will be available for months to come. “We have had a down crop for the last few years. This is more of a normal crop,” she said. “We are celebrating the average. It’s not going to be extremely flush but there will definitely be promotable volume. For navels, that should start by the second week of December with January, February and March offering peak supplies with the best tasting fruit of the season.”

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The citrus season is about to begin.

Perusing her list of citrus varietals, the Fruit World executive said organic Cara Cara oranges will start shipping in mid-December with promotable volume available in mid-January. The organic mandarins will start out slow as the early season Clementine crop is light. “But when we move into the second half of the season (mid-February and beyond) with our Murcotts and Tangos, especially Tangos, we are going to have very good promotable volume.”

Kaprelian said Fruit World has completed the three-year transition from conventional to organic production on two more of its company-owned mandarin ranches giving the grower-shipper a boost in its mandarin volume this season.

For their part, Organic lemons are a year-round crop and currently are in good supply. Fruit World started harvesting in the Coachella Valley in Southern California about a month ago with the volume ramping up this late October week. She said the first month saw a lot of small fruit, but moving forward there will be a good supply of organic lemons in the larger 115 and 95 sizes, with the peak in the 140s (the size designation equates to the number of individual fruit in the carton).

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Organic pomelos and grapefruit are also about to start their season in the same California desert region.

Optimism for organics

Kaprelian admitted that she tends to skew toward the pessimistic end of the scale when evaluating her own crops, but this season she is allowing optimism to reign supreme. “I am very pleased with how the season has been going,” she repeated. “We’re not overly flush but we have good supplies.”

She did add that the demand for organic fruit, including citrus, continues to grow and Fruit World is committed to serving that market. “The crops are harder to grow and in these inflationary times, it’s challenging to grow the market,” she said. “But we do see a path forward and consumers continue to want organics.”

There is a good supply of organic lemons.

Craig Morris, category director for citrus & grapes at Homegrown Organic Farms in Porterville, CA, had equally positive comments about California’s 2024/25 organic citrus lineup. “We are going to be starting navels next week,” he said on Oct. 28. “We’re about four to five days behind an average schedule. The fruit set was down about 10%, but it is a very nice, clean crop with no thrip damage.”

He reported that thrips were a bit of a problem the last couple of years. Morris said the smaller set and lack of pest issues, should result in good supplies of larger fruit. He predicted the organic navel orange pack out will peak on 72s and 56s.

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He added that by mid- to late-November, HGO will have sufficient organic navel oranges to support promotions. He noted that because the fruit can be stored on the tree and picked in an orderly fashion, Homegrown will be able to offer promotional volumes through April, and will be shipping through May.

Morris stated that the organic mandarin crop is expected to produce its first fruit by November 10, with December featuring a full slate of organic citrus varieties to go along with mandarins and navels, including lemons, cara cara and blood oranges, as well as pomelos and grapefruit.