Good rainfall in 2011 is one of the factors contributing to a strong 2012 projection for the California avocado season. With the big part of the season still a few months away, growers are anticipating volumes larger than last year's.
“Last year, we had a small crop,” says J.R. McDaniel of McDaniel Fruit.
“California produced 300 million pounds of avocados in 2011, but we're expecting a larger crop this year.”
Early projections for 2012 production in California are between 340 million and 400 million pounds. That would represent an increase from 2011, and would likely affect the market price in the upcoming year.
“Prices will almost certainly be lower than last year,” says Phil Henry of the Henry Avocado Corporation.
“There were smaller crops in the US and Mexico last year, but that's not the case for 2012,” he says, “so it's almost a sure thing prices will be lower.”
Though McDaniel thinks it's tough to predict prices so early in the season, he agrees prices will not be as high as they were last year.
“Prices will be at a reasonable level,” he says. “We're not going to see the $50 per box prices of 2011.”
Though the release date for Hass avocados, the date after which growers can harvest the fruit, passed a few days ago, very little harvesting is currently taking place.
Henry says the only reason to harvest right now would be to clear trees.
“We're doing very little harvesting, mostly for maintenance,” adds McDaniel.
“We're letting the fruit size up right now,” he says, “and it will probably be four to six weeks before we start harvesting. So it will be about late-February or early-March, and then we should have plenty of avocados, a good supply.”