Citrus x sinensis
Navel Foios
Harvest: November – February. Table.
Datasheet
No certification yet. We say so rather than leave it out.
Where it grows
- Planted 1993
Albuixech
l'Horta Nord
- Planted 1993
Alfara del Patriarca
l'Horta Nord
- Planted 1993
Moncada
l'Horta Nord
Plot photographs are still being taken. Ask the grower which origin details we can confirm in writing for your order.
Harvest
Regional picking window: November – February.
Pick when the fruit is ready, not just when the calendar says so. Check the balance of sugars and acidity, juice content and rind condition against the intended use. Rind colour alone does not establish maturity.
Navel Foios overlaps with the other Navels. Choose the picking week around the maturity and sizes needed for the order, rather than treating an overlap in the calendar as interchangeable supply.
Work backwards from the delivery week, allowing for packing and transport. The window is a regional reference; the picking date and availability of our fruit are confirmed with the grower before an order.
Where Navel Foios sits in the campaign
The regional window for Navel Foios sits in the middle of the campaign. It opens while Navelina is already being picked and it closes as Navel Lane Late comes in, so for most of its run it shares the calendar with another variety of ours. For a given delivery week the choice between them usually comes down to fruit size, intended use and what your customer expects to see in the box.
The window above is regional, and the harvest section records that our own picking dates are still to be confirmed. Start from the week you need the fruit at your premises, tell us the destination and the intended use, then ask which part of that window the grower can commit to for the quantity you actually want.
The name on the order, and the datasheet behind it
Foios is the clone of Washington Navel that Spanish nurseries have propagated almost to the exclusion of any other, and no separate variety record is published under the Foios name. The measurements quoted for it in the trade are Washington Navel measurements. That is worth knowing before you set an offer against a datasheet, because the two names describe the same plant material.
It also shapes the price reference. The weekly series we publish follows the Navel group for this variety rather than a line of its own, so what it shows is a group average and not the movement of this cultivar. Where this variety differs from the others is that the quantity itself moves the number: a full load and a shared one are not priced the same way, and with most of the holding planted to it, a full load is a conversation worth having.
The largest fruit in our catalogue
Of the three Navel cultivars we grow this is the roundest and the largest at the tree, and its rind colour sits between the other two: warmer than the pale rind of Navel Lane Late, without the reddish cast of Navelina. The navel shows as a puckered ring set into a crown at the blossom end. It is the fruit to ask about when a display is built around size and the fruit is sold by the piece.
The datasheet lists it for table use alone, where Navelina and Navel Lane Late also carry juice, so treat it as fruit that will be sold whole. This variety carries the widest size range in the catalogue, which sounds like an advantage and is really a question: a wide range means the week decides what you get. Which codes we can actually fill in a given week is still to be confirmed, and it belongs in the conversation before the order rather than after it.
Mature plots, and what to settle first
Navel Foios is the variety behind most of what we have planted. The plots listed on this page are all in l'Horta Nord, and each entry carries the year it went into the ground, which puts mature trees behind this fruit rather than a recent planting. Plot photographs are still being taken, so agree early what origin detail we can put in writing for your order.
This is the variety behind most of what the holding has planted, so it is the only one where a question about volume has a real answer. What is still open is the minimum order and how much can leave in a single week, and neither is a detail you want to discover after agreeing a programme. Say whether you are asking about a trial or about a season: it changes what the grower can sensibly commit to.
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.