For the first time in 20 years, Berkeley Bowl had to go without its small supply of kosher etrogs this Sukkot. The reasons? An an earlier than usual Jewish holiday season and the extreme heat wave in the Central Valley.
Greg Kirkpatrick, whose family ranch supplies the supermarket, said he was forced to focus on his main business — wholesaling etrogs to New Jersey — while leaving his small but eager Bay Area customer base without California-grown fruit. Kirkpatrick and his family run Lindcove Ranch, one of the country’s only commercial etrog farms, located in Exeter in Tulare County.
“This is a fruit that wants to be mature in our climate in about November, so we’re always trying to push things along,” Kirkpatrick said. “Then when the heat hits, the trees kind of just shut down.”
According to jweekly.com¸ these pressures forced Kirkpatrick to cull around 10,000 baby etrogs early in the season to encourage the growth of larger etrogs that would be ready for market in time.
