From the Fields - Chris Lange

By Chris Lange, Tulare County tree crop farmer and rancher 

We begin harvesting (table) olives this week, and we will finish by the end of October. The industry has a shockingly light crop. I’ve talked to experts, and they don’t understand why, considering all the rainfall we had, the temperatures in the spring and the big bloom. Olives typically are alternate bearing, and this is the year we should have a big crop. But for some reason, the trees are taking a vacation from producing a crop. There are many growers who are not even harvesting any olives this year, and others are being very selective of where they harvest. We have more olives than most (other growers), but it’s certainly not a limb breaker. The price has come up. But to make it profitable, you need volume, a strong price and market.

On our Angus beef cattle, we are calving. We keep thinking prices have plateaued, but surprisingly, they have continued to increase. We are making decisions to sell some of our carryover breeding stock. Sales are strong, and the price continues to go up, even though there’s speculation that these strong prices are not going to hold, but so far they have. We’re continuing to sell selectively from the herd.

On citrus, we’re looking at a crop that is a little shorter than last year, which was considered a somewhat short crop. Sizes on the 2022-23 crop were smaller than we had hoped. This year, the sizes are greater, but the number of pieces of fruit per tree seems to be down a bit. We’re making (gibberellic acid) decisions right now. We’re analyzing critically what fruit will be designated for export markets. We’re hoping prices will be stronger than they were last year. It looks like there might be more crop than we originally thought, but it’s still early. It’s hard to judge when we will begin harvest, but I’m going to say November, which would be normal.