Debbie Chamberlain Riverside County mango and vegetable farmer
We’re two weeks into our main variety of mango called Valencia Pride. It’s the one we have the most trees of. The harvest looks good so far—good sizing taking place. We probably have four to five weeks to go of that variety. After that, we have proba- bly until Sept. 1 to finish off another variety, the Keitt mango. We finished two early varieties. Nam Dok Mai, a Thailand mango, comes off first. That was the end of June. They call that the dessert mango of Thailand. It’s a small- er-size mango, very sweet, very low fiber. We also finished Golden Lady, which is a variety that we developed in our field. It’s from a Haden seedling also, but it’s golden with a red blush, and it’s very sweet and medium fiber. We also have a few Manilas. The mango has alternate-bearing tendencies, so with these first varieties, we did have a lower yield. But our main variety is looking real good, and so does the Keitt, which was low last year. We really work hard to make sure it’s a standout product—picking mangos tree- ripe. They don’t have to go through that hot water bath that all imported mangos have to go through. It really affects the flavor. The other things we’re doing is adding more greenhouse, because we need to increase our basil production during our tomato season. We’ve had really good de- mand for (basil). We’re building more shade houses to get increased mango (tree) reproduction, because we also sell mango trees retail. We do these other projects during the offseason to increase production based on our past results, so that’s been good news despite all the increase in costs. We’re just inching up (production) to meet demand. Of course, we’ve had to in- crease prices because of all the increased costs, but fortunately, (the products) are still in demand.
Photo/Melissa Jewel
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July 20, 2022 Ag Alert 5
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