Variety comparison
Which Spanish navel for which week of the campaign
Navelina opens the campaign and runs longest, Navel Foios covers the middle of the season, and Navel Lane Late carries it into spring. If your programme is fixed by delivery week, start from the week and let the cultivar follow.
Side by side
| What you are comparing | Navelina | Navel Foios | Navel Lane Late |
|---|---|---|---|
| Regional picking window | October – March | November – February | January – April |
| Group | Navel group | Navel group | Late navel |
| Sizes we pack | 3, 4, 5 | 3, 4, 5, 6 | 4, 5, 6 |
| Full size range | 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 | 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 | 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 |
| Seeds | Seedless | Seedless | Seedless |
| Intended use | Table / Juice | Table | Table / Juice |
| Post-harvest treatment | To confirm | To confirm | To confirm |
Which one to order, and when
Your programme starts in autumn
Navelina
It is the first of the three to come off the tree and the one with the longest regional window, so it covers the opening weeks without a cultivar change on the order.
You buy through the middle of the season
Navel Foios
It sits between the early and the late navel, and it is the variety behind most of what we have planted, so it is the one we can talk about in volume.
You need fruit after the turn of the year
Navel Lane Late
It is the only one of the three still being picked into spring, and it is where our own campaign ends.
What this comparison does not settle
- A picking window is regional, not a delivery promise. It tells you when the fruit is normally cut in this area, not that a lot is ready for your week.
- Brix, acid ratio and weeks of storage are not yet measured on our fruit. Where a purchase depends on them, ask the grower before ordering.
- Our own campaign ends with Navel Lane Late in spring. We do not grow a late Valencia, so May and June are outside what we can cover.
Why the cultivar follows the week, not the other way round
A buying programme that runs from autumn into spring will change cultivar at least once, because no single Spanish navel covers the whole of it. That change is not a detail to settle later: it belongs on the order, in the specification you hold your own customer to, and in whatever you print on the box. A retailer who has been told to expect one name and receives another will treat it as a substitution, even when the fruit is better.
The practical order is to fix the delivery weeks first and let the cultivar fall out of them. Some weeks in the middle of the campaign have two windows open at once, which gives you a choice; the opening and closing weeks usually do not. Working the other way round, starting from a cultivar you like and asking for it in a week it is not picked, is how a programme ends up short.
What a picking window does not tell you
The windows in the table are regional. They describe when a variety is normally cut in this growing area, which is what a buyer needs in order to plan a season. They are not a statement that a lot is ready in a given week, and nothing on a variety page ever will be: that answer changes with the weather and belongs in a conversation about a specific delivery.
The two ends of a window are also the least reliable part of it. Fruit cut at the very start of a window can be short of colour, and fruit cut at the very end has been on the tree longest. If your order sits at either edge, say so when you ask, because it changes what we can commit to.
Where our own campaign stops
Our late navel is where our season ends. We do not grow a late Valencia, so the part of the Spanish window that runs into early summer is outside what we can supply from our own plantings. For a buyer covering a full year that is a real gap, and it is better read here than discovered in April.
If your programme needs those weeks, tell us at the start. It changes the conversation from what we can sell you to how your year is covered, and that is a more useful conversation to have in autumn than in spring.
The other decisions a buyer makes before ordering
Talk to the grower
Tell us the variety, the sizes and the delivery week you need. You get a delivered price and what we can commit to in writing, from the person who picks the fruit.
The grower handles enquiries. Response times are still to be confirmed.