Some growers may cut back -- or pass up -- lettuce plantings for a fall harvest in Huron, CA, as a result of tight water supplies. The fall Iceberg lettuce harvest in Huron typically runs for as long as five weeks and serves to fill a gap between the end of quality product from the California and Arizona desert areas and the start of the Iceberg lettuce harvest in the Salinas Valley. Crops that require less irrigation and tillage than Iceberg lettuce could look attractive during times of tight water allocations. Westlands Water District, which covers much of the west side of the Central Valley

International news agency CNN featured Kingsville, ON-based North American greenhouse tomato marketer Mastronardi Produce on the "Lou Dobbs Tonight" show on June 30. With the focus of the produce industry centered on the Salmonella outbreak, CNN correspondent Kitty Pilgrim, sitting in for Lou Dobbs, was quick to point out the key successes of Mastronardi's traceability program. "We ensure that we are able to track the fruit that we produce. We can walk into any store and pick up one of our 'Sunset' labeled tomatoes and trace it back to the greenhouse where it was grown," Paul Mastronardi

For many years it was called Baesler's Meat Market, and this single store in Terre Haute, IN, was proud of that designation. But Baesler's, now a full-service retailer, has dropped the "Meat" part of its name, and fourth-generation owner Bob Baesler said that produce is now the top draw -- and has been for quite some time. "Produce is number one with our customers and it has been for probably the last eight years," said Mr. Baesler. But it wasn't always that way. George Baesler, the current owner's great- grandfather, started the meat market in 1896, and it kept that moniker until Bob's father

The Sholl Group II, the Minneapolis-based marketer of selected "Green Giant Fresh" produce products, announced that all "Green Giant Fresh" eight-ounce packages of whole and sliced mushrooms are part of Weight Watchers Pick of the Season program, and that beginning July 1 and continuing through September, "Green Giant Fresh" mushrooms will feature the Weight Watchers logo along with the "0 POINTS value" per serving logo. Green Giant Fresh mushrooms are available in select grocery stores nationwide. The new labeling is the result of a recent partnership formed between the Mushroom Council and

Four Seasons Produce Inc.'s distribution center in Ephrata, PA, has earned the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's prestigious Energy Star, the national symbol for superior energy efficiency and environmental protection that is awarded to some commercial buildings and industrial plants that rate in the top 25 percent of facilities in the nation for energy efficiency. Four Season's facility is one of only two refrigerated warehouses in the country to earn the designation. "Four Seasons Produce is pleased to accept EPA's recognition of our energy efficiency," Ron Carkoski, president and chief

SALINAS, CA -- The Grower-Shipper Association of Central California presented its E.E. (Gene) Harden Award for lifetime achievement in Central Coast agriculture to Jim Lugg of Fresh Express. The award was formally presented to Mr. Lugg June 21 as part of the organization's annual dinner-dance at the Corral de Tierra Country Club in Salinas, CA. The association's chairman, Dennis Donohue, presided over the presentation along with Fresh Express President Tanios Viviani and association President Jim Bogart. Mr. Lugg has worked for Fresh Express and TransFresh in research and food safety for 45