After the heavy rains that fell over the past week in California, strawberry growers have now turned to cleaning up their fields and removing damaged strawberries. Both Salinas and Santa Maria were hit by rains, with the greater amount falling in the Salinas-Watsonville growing district. Despite growers picking as many berries as possible ahead of the rains, in general most of the ripe fruit that remained in the fields was damaged. Harvesting came to a halt as firstly muddy conditions prevented any meaningful access to fields, followed by the cleaning up process which is currently ongoing.
Market will tighten up
Although production will get back to normal in a couple of weeks, shippers will still have to work through limited supplies over this period. Comparatively little fruit has been shipped this week but prices have remained steady for now. Shippers are also considering how quality will be over the next two weeks.
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