By Clint Thompson
North Florida watermelon harvests are in their fourth week across the Suwanee Valley region. One industry expert believes there is still more than half of the crop remaining.
“There are many fields that are basically in the first harvesting. I would say we have a lot of tonnage out in the fields yet to be harvested if the market will allow,” said Bob Hochmuth, University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS) Regional Specialized Extension agent in Live Oak, Florida.
“If I were to put a percentage on it, I would say we’re less than halfway to what would be sort of a normal season. Some of the very early fields have been harvested twice, maybe some a third time, and then we’ve got many other fields, most of the grafted fields, either have been just scrapped over or just getting started. A lot of the later fields have been over maybe just one time.
“We’re only at June 1. I think when we have gotten to June 1 here in the last few years, absolutely, there’s still a lot of fruit to be harvested and moved.”
Low Market Prices
Florida watermelon growers are excited about the quality of the fruit left to be picked. They haven’t been as happy with market prices, however. Those prices might drop further with Georgia’s crop coming online in recent days.
“After Memorial Day, I think a lot of people thought (the market) was going to get soft pretty quickly immediately after Memorial Day. That’s in fact what happened. When you look at the whole situation here, you still have some cleanup still being done down in Plant City and as far down as Arcadia in the last week. You have watermelon harvests going on in central and south parts of Florida all the way up into Georgia. That’s a big spread, and with increased acreage, it just makes the situation tough to move that many watermelons into a specific window,” Hochmuth said.
“The market is tough right now.”