Customers,
We are currently shipping from the California desert and two spots in Texas, the lower Rio Grande valley near McAllen and the Wintergarden district near Laredo & Uvalde. California has good volume of yellows and reds and they will have through at least the third week in May. The only issue in California is having too much size in their yellows. Their growing conditions have caused the onions to be large, many packers have a lot of colossal and super-colossal yellows and their temperatures are only beginning to rise so the onions still in the ground could get even larger. Texas volume is light in the Rio Grande valley as many shippers are finishing up down there and some will transition to the Wintergarden area. Wintergarden as a district doesn’t have the planted acreage that the valley has so expect Texas to be less of a factor even as they get into better volume next week. The Wintergarden area will ship yellows and reds for between two to six weeks depending on weather and quality.
The yellow market is gaining strength. The main factor for this is the lack of supplies from the Texas valley right now. We are supposed to have better volume from the Wintergarden area next week but they got rain last night so there may be harvest delays and an even stronger market next week. They are forecast for more thunder storms today and then rain again starting next Thursday, May 19th. Expect the suppliers to push the market up where possible considering the relatively low prices that we have had so far this season. California has good volume but many shippers are holding back on harvest to try to capture any price increases for next week’s business.
Our next transition will be to New Mexico and the San Joaquin valley in California. Both areas are supposed to start packing and shipping between the first and second week of June. We should see a smooth transition in California but availability might be low the last week of May. Some of New Mexico’s crop was lost during the cold spell that gripped the west coast during the month of February, but we won’t know for sure how much damage has been done until New Mexico starts packing. This could cause an artificially high market to begin the season.
