Winds Blamed for 5% Loss in 2 Key Crops

Heavy, hot winds coming months later than usual knocked millions of avocados off trees and bruised lemons this week, causing an estimated crop loss of 5%, keeping cleanup crews busy and county growers hoping for cooler weather.

Winds may die down and rain may come by Monday, meteorologists said, but the hot Santa Anas have already left their mark by banging lemons into tree branches and lowering crop values.

The winds caught the trees at a vulnerable time, agriculture experts said, drying them out at a time when they normally hold more moisture and when crops are ripening. The wind swings the fruit wildly, lemons scratch against branches, and avocados thud to the ground.

The winds hit orchards in the east county, Somis and along the Santa Clara River. Tiny pockets on northeast-facing slopes and hilltops may have lost almost half their fruit, experts said. That is where the winds hit the hardest as they came from a high-pressure system over Utah and Colorado, which pushed warm, dry air west over California.

This same pattern occurred in December 1999 and January 2000, and damaged crops, said Earl McPhail, Ventura County’s agricultural commissioner. But these winds aren’t typical, he said.

Growers estimate total losses at 5%, a mere dent in the $264 million the two crops bring into the county each year, but enough to send workers scrambling to salvage what they can and rush it to packinghouses.

“We’re thinking we lost about 3.5 million pounds on the ground, and we’re thinking we picked up about a million pounds of it,” said Bob Gloeckler, an avocado grower in Somis and district manager for Calavo Growers of California, a cooperative that represents about 2,000 avocado growers from San Diego to San Luis Obispo. Those growers supply about 35% of the nation’s avocados.

Calavo produces about 200 million to 210 million pounds of avocados in Ventura County a year, making a loss of 3.5 million about 1.5%.

But county agriculture experts said the final tally might reach 15% and the effect will depend on the size of this year’s crop.

“How much this will affect the prices in the next two to three months is a little difficult to predict right now,” McPhail said.

Ross Wileman, vice president of sales at Oxnard’s Mission Produce, said the falling avocados won’t be that bad. He estimated the losses at 1%.

Still, packinghouses worked overtime this week as growers brought in their fallen fruit.

Smaller avocados are more vulnerable to winds, Gloeckler said, so workers must sort out the salvageable fruit 5 ounces or larger.

Lemon growers are also trying to estimate how much of their crops will be downgraded because of scratches and bruising from the winds.

Last year, lemons brought $201 million to the county, second behind strawberries. Avocados rank sixth, bringing in $63 million a year.

A 15% loss in the lemon crop would total $30 million.

Link Leavens, whose Leavens Ranches has groves throughout the county, estimated that damage in his Moorpark groves could reach 15%. There, Leavens has 500 acres of lemons and 300 acres of avocados.

“The first-grade product brings more money, but the second- and third-grade products are break-even at best,” he said.

Weather Central Inc. forecaster Alan Shoemaker said the winds should die down by today. Daytime temperatures, which have been in the 70s and 80s, should return to the 50s and 60s, more typical for the season.