California Business Minute™

Hi, I am Tim Johnson and welcome to the California Business Minute.

Avocado growers are looking very closely at this year’s crop.  Sparse best characterizes
this year’s harvest.

Observers say it will be the smallest crop in 20 years and possibly one of the smallest in
state history. The reasons for the small crop are many. Experts say a hard freeze in January
2007, wildfires later that year, a 30 percent water cutback, inclement weather at bloom; poor
pollination, pest infestations and quarantines, and the trees' tendency to bear alternately heavy
and light crops have taken their toll.

California avocados are grown year-round and can have more than one crop on the trees at one
time. A single California tree can produce up to 200 pounds of fresh avocados each year, about
500 pieces of fruit, although most average around 60 pounds or 150 pieces of fruit.

The combination of forces coming together to reduce yields for the 2009 avocado crop is highly
unusual, experts say. In 2007 the crop was valued at about $251 million. At this point no one is
venturing a guess about the value of the 2009 crop. The California Avocado Commission says
there has been a decline in avocado groves in the top avocado-producing region, San Diego County,
in the past year. In addition to the 30 percent cutback in irrigation water, which led farmers to cut
some trees back to their stumps or pull them out altogether, there also are avocado acres damaged
or destroyed by wildfire in 2007.

"We know that about 4,000 acres were burned by wildfires and we also know that about 4,000 acres
have been stumped," says Guy Witney, California Avocado Commission director of industry affairs
and production research. "We don't know how much overlap there is right now."

I am Tim Johnson and this has been the California Business Minute.