California-based distributor Giumarra Companies has seen positive traction for its Mexican watermelon deal this year, in part due to efforts developing water and soil systems to produce "heady" fruit with high density and sweetness.

With the end of the season around three to four weeks away, Giumarra's Nogales division manager Gil Munguia told www.freshfruitportal.com the fruit has been of excellent quality so far with good size and brix levels, prompting a healthy rate of repeat sales.

He said the company's grower partners in the Mexican state of Sonora continued to expand their farms each year, around the areas of Guaymas and Hermosillo.

"They're doing very well, with water and soil management systems that have advanced probes in the irrigating system so that you only put as much water in as the plant can absorb," he said.

"That way the water doesn't leak down into the roots. You save soil and water, and cut costs on fertilizer as well."

He emphasized the Mexican watermelon program had taken a long time to develop with the right proprietary varieties suited to range of soil conditions present in Sonora.

"We also do a lot of grafted watermelons. In this case we use a hardshell squash root system, grafting the watermelon plant on top of that, which gives resistance to disease that could affect the plant."

He said a small portion of the fruit were sold to processors, which had also required significant efforts to meet the demands of the food manufacturing sector.

"We sell a heady fruit with a lot of density, which is helpful when selling to processors," he said.

"They do pressure tests and the results are very strong; when you cut it you don't lose weight. You don't have as much run-off and it retains water.

"It's a good support we've worked on to build an option of going to the processors, as they've got very tight specifics."

He said some of the partnerships in Sonora were in the form of joint ventures, but for the most part it was working with individual growers and sourcing their fruit for the U.S. and Canada.

Giumarra's watermelons from Mexico come from fair trade-certified farms, giving retailers the opportunity participate in this program in which they can give a sales premium to a grower council.

Photo: Giumarra Companies

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