MARKET REPORT - JULY 12TH, 2016

Every producer tries to run a continuous succession planting programHere is a report from VBZ – one of the largest organic grape growers in California – this is a follow-up to what I said last week – and have re-iterated at least 50 times over the past few years – a changing climate takes ALL the predictability out of harvest windows and “days to grow”.  I’ll hand this over to Chance Kirk – president of VBZ.“Since last November through today, we bookend one of the strangest, chaotic grape markets ever. Rain, Hail, Recording Breaking Heat, one of the coolest Aprils on record, historic low returns on marginal fruit , Supply disruptions, Quality issues, peak labor, new millennium Generation Fruit Buyers baptized by fire their first year on the desk, Drought Created Sink Holes on the west side of the valley, Forest Fires causing Air quality restrictions. A 5.6 earthquake 25 miles from our Coachella Cold storage.  And every time I say “nothing will shock me this year”, something new pops up. I closed up shop in Coachella July 4^th and we finished the last of our Scarlet Royals July 1^st. The last of our 18# sugars ship out of Mecca Today and I have about 6 loads of Coachella Globes I’m bringing up to Delano Tuesday morning. Coachella Globes winding down for us and we should see Central CA kick in in 2 wks. A few updates on how were are mimicking the front end of the Mexico and Coachella grape districts & the early CA cherry harvest and how this will affect our harvest in July & August.  Industry wide, the south valley sugar crop will pack out much lighter than we all though. I started 7 days ago and I’m done today with a 35% decline off our estimates. Bottom line sugars are off 15/20%, front end flame #’s are off a bit and then everything levels out by August. A condensed, overlapping varietal scenario is developing starting this wk. Flames 7 days ahead of schedule. The first grower to harvest this season was outside Fresno – beat the early Arvin guys by 2 days-  Our late Season Flames that started August 1^st last yr, started 2 wks ago July 4^th -  the same day Arvin growers began. Our early flame ranches that we harvested last year starting mid-June are still 10/14 days out – 6 weeks late.Organic & Conventional Sweets start today - 3 wks ahead of last yrs start date. Thompsons I’ll start at least 2 wks ahead of schedule.Organic Crimsons I typically start the end of August –are 3 /4 wks ahead of schedule – I may even start packing these up the end of July as conventional for export business.  Autumn Royal ranches harvested last season in mid sept – ready in 2/ 3 wks – 5/6 weeks early - this one is a head scratcher…Summer Royal ranches I started mid -July last year I’ve been harvesting since July 4^th. Scarlett Royals – 10 days ahead of schedule and breaking with color this wk.”   In order to have a consistent supply of any crop, every producer tries to run a continuous succession planting program (vegetables) or plant many varieties of fruit – whether grapes, blueberries or apricots.  There are several rationales for this.  One is to maintain your position in the market with continuous supply.  Second is to have good efficiencies for your packing operations, with an on-going harvest / pack / ship schedule that keeps all your labour busy, not overwhelmed, and no gaps.  So you can imagine the chaos when you can’t plan anything in advance, like you did for the last 80 years, like this grape producer.