Chodosh season begins early

CHODOSH BULLETIN-12 JUL 16

Those who want to purchase Yoshon items to store over the Chodosh season should do so now, as soon as possible.

The progress of the 3 crops, spring wheat, oats and barley is ahead of normal. According to the latest weekly bulletin from the US Department of Agriculture, the harvest of the Chodosh oats has just barely started. The spring wheat and barley harvest may start within 1 week. 

Our tentative recommended cutoff dates for packaged foods is Jul 20 for oats and July 27 for wheat and barley products (not malt, which is much later). These are packaging dates. It should take several weeks beyond that for the Chodosh packages to reach the local groceries. However, freshly baked goods in bakeries, such as bread, challah, bagels may be Chodosh (tentative) starting Jul 27 in the mid West and Aug 3 elsewhere in the US.

Even though pesach was late on the solar calendar this year, still almost all of the 3 crops of interest were planted after pesach and are Chodosh. The early harvest this year is due to weather conditions in the growing areas.

The next revised update on this topic is due BE”H one week from now.