Green Tree International Inc. in Visalia, CA, continues this year to broker California stone fruit “pretty much from all the major shippers here in the [San Joaquin] Valley,” said Cary Crum, vice president of the company, in an interview with The Produce News on April 9.

The peach crops at Warmerdam Packing in Hanford, CA, whose fruit is marketed by The Flavor Tree Fruit Co. LLC, received little damage from a hailstorm April 11 that industry sources estimate may have reduced the state’s 2012 stone fruit crop by around 18 percent.

“Tomatoes on the vine typically have the largest share of the greenhouse tomato category but aren’t always the best when it comes to flavor,” said Nancy Pickersgill, event planning and communication manager for Mastronardi Produce Sunset headquartered in Leamington, ON. “Sunset Delano is our solution to this taste issue, being a slightly smaller tomato with more flavor than traditional TOVs and with fewer seeds.

As Arnold Mack of McMelon, Inc. in Lake Wales, FL, is fond of saying, “You will never see anyone coming out of a supermarket with an umbrella in one hand and carrying a watermelon.”

Which is another way of saying weather drives the watermelon market. And weather so far this spring has been perfect for both bringing on watermelons early and setting up demand for a strong season.

“We use the opportunity of attending the New England Produce Council Produce and Floral Expo to kick off our Jersey Fresh season,” Al Murray, assistant secretary of agriculture and continuing director, Division of Markets, for the New Jersey Department of Agriculture, told The Produce News. “The expo is perfectly timed to the beginning of our growing season, and we take advantage of the event to remind the industry that New Jersey produce is now available.”

Charles H. (Chuck) Hodges, a founder of Prime Time International in Coachella, CA, and a managing member of the company, died April 19 in his home in Palm Springs, CA, after a 16-month struggle with cancer. He was 71.

Mr. Hodges served as vice president of sales at Sun World International prior to co-founding the company now known as Prime Time in 1992.