The harvest is later than in recent harvest seasons because black plastic that warms the ground and speeds maturity was not used on the beds this year. Randy Taylor, who is the largest cantaloupe grower in the area, said that the black plastic caused the melons to get too hot in last summer's prolonged heat wave, lowering the quality. Clay Taylor said that he expects the sweet melons to start coming in to the Pecos Cantaloupe Shed on the Balmorhea Highway sometime after July 4.
Acreage is down because some growers have quit.
Hail that damaged 1,250 acres of Taylor cantaloupes and onions about five or six weeks ago didn't hurt the cantaloupe yield much, Taylor said. And onions keep flowing into the sheds daily. Taylor said they are about to finish up with the crop that was planted last fall and winter, and will take a break of about a week before starting on the transplants. Both onions and cantaloupes are processed, packaged and shipped from sheds at the Balmorhea Highway location. Pecos Cantaloupe also operates an onion shed on North Willow Street.