Week 3 At The Source

Total rainfall during week #3 was only 18.4 mm – less than a inch and concentrated at the beginning of the week. Low rainfall and high solar radiation were the positive weather variables of the week but low air and soil temperatures continued – meaning that the risk of a stressed induced event of NDF is something that should not be ruled out yet. As scheduled, the farms have began during week #3 identifying the first two events of naturally differentiated fruit that occurred during W46-47 and W48-49. This practice, although labor intensive and costly in itself, will bring definite benefits at the time of harvest. One of the major concerns at harvest time is determining the chronological age of the fruit specifically in fields affected by events of “natural fruit”. One can easily conclude that if we harvest and pack fruit of different ages, we would end up with very extremes of maturity in a box. This was indeed a major problem in years past before we adopted this practice. Now with this identification process, we have improved our quality during these challenging times by assuring the harvest of similar age fruit during the harvest week.