Citrus x sinensis
Navel Lane Late
Harvest: January – April. Table / Juice.
Datasheet
No certification yet. We say so rather than leave it out.
Where it grows
- Planted 1997
Alfara del Patriarca
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: January – April.
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 Lane Late carries the end of our campaign. For a late pick, check acidity and the condition of the fruit before extending the harvest: longer on the tree does not automatically mean better fruit.
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.
The variety that carries the end of our campaign
Navel Lane Late is the last of the four to be picked. Its regional window opens while the early Navels are still running and it closes later than any other window on this site, so it is the only product we list for the final delivery weeks of the Spanish season. If your programme has to reach that far into the spring, this is the variety to plan around.
It is also where our campaign stops. We do not grow Valencia Late, so once this variety finishes there is no later fruit behind it from our own plots. That matters while a programme is being built: if your requirement runs past this window, the remainder has to come from another supplier, and it is better settled at the start of a season than in the middle of one.
Because its window opens before the early Navels finish, a programme can change variety without a gap in supply. Treat the change as a specification review rather than a continuation. The cultivar name on the order changes, and with it the size distribution and the appearance your customer has become used to. The harvest calendar shows where the windows overlap.
How it looks, and how it comes off the tree
Published variety datasheets give Navel Lane Late the palest rind of the three Navel cultivars we grow, and the thinnest and smoothest of them. UC Riverside describes its navel as slightly smaller than that of the Washington Navel it mutated from. Field descriptions add longitudinal grooves that sometimes run down from the calyx towards the far end of the fruit.
It also holds hard to the stalk, so the fruit tends to leave the tree with its sepals and a stub of stem still attached. Both points are worth raising before an order. If your customer buys late in the season and expects a deep orange rind, the paler colour belongs to the cultivar, so check that it fits the display; and if the stem has to be trimmed for your presentation, say so while the specification is being written.
The price reference, and what is still open
For this variety the weekly price series we publish is a match at cultivar level rather than a group average, which is not how it works for Navel Foios or for Clemenules. That makes it more useful for reading direction. It still describes a national observation at a single stage of the chain, so it cannot value a particular lot from l'Horta, nor account for the sizes and the packing your customer needs.
Fruit cut at the very end of a window has been on the tree longest, which is exactly where our own picking dates stop being a formality and start deciding what arrives. Those dates are unconfirmed, and so is how long the fruit holds afterwards. Ask for both before the order rather than after the lorry has left; a pending row is a question you can still get answered.
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.