Mild Fall Means Early Start To Mandarin Harvest Season

PENRYN (CBS13) — Mild temperatures in California are welcome news for mandarin growers whose harvest is off to an early start.

Tony Aguilar was worried at first by the summer's unusually long heat wave on top of a lack of rain. But that worry disappeared as soon as he tasted his mandarins.

"Great fruit, very sweet, and an early season," he said.

The only downfall to the early season is customers thinking the fruit won't taste as good.

"Our customers weren't expecting it, so they're a little taken aback we are starting this early," said Aguilar.

While the weather has been great for this year's harvest, the dry ground is a big concern for the next year. Tony says there's usually two decent rainfalls by the point in the year, but not so in 2013.

"If it's dry all winter, and they start throttling back some of the water, that could be a big issue for us," he said.