The mystery of lemons..

We bought our house in Spain in 2003. We are surrounded by acres of lemon groves and for the last 13 years have always asked each other every year - when do they harvest the lemons?

Lemon trees as far as you can see

Over the last 12 years (we have been here permanently for the last 15 months) we have been here in every month of the year from January to December, and have never once seen them harvest the lemons.
Lemon trees in the same field seem to be in different stages of growth. Some are in leaf only, some are in blossom and leaf, some have lemons and leaves, and some have blossom, lemons and leaves on the same tree at the same time. All these combinations of trees are growing next to each other in the same field - very confusing!

Leaves, flowers and lemons

Leaves, flowers, no lemons

Leaves, no flowers, no lemons

Leaves, lemons, no flowers

 There does not seem to be any rhyme or reason to their growth, and they certainly don't follow the normal pattern of leaves, leaves and blossom, leaves and fruit, then leaves.

We have asked many different people to explain this to us and, obviously, have got many different answers.
We wondered if the lemons in the same field were different species (which would explain their different stages of lemon production), and if so was this because they were for different products - some for export to supermarkets, some for local consumption, some for essential oils, some for industrial use - and this determined when and how they were harvested.

These lemons were put in yellow crates and left in the field overnight - for a different market?

To the untrained eye (ours!) the lemons seem to be hanging on the trees for ages, to the extent that most of them seem to end up on the floor.
The lemons are irrigated with water from the desalination plant at El Mojon on the coast. The water goes through three stages of desalination. Stage one is used for agriculture such as the lemons. Stage two is for the grass on golf courses, and stage three is for drinking water for households.

A massive water main to irrigate the lemons

The landowner puts so much effort into cultivating the lemons in terms of watering, keeping the rows weed-free, spraying against pests and diseases, it seems ridiculous that when the lemons are ripe (or appear to be to us) they just fall on the floor, and presumably go to waste. There must be a sane reason for this, but for the life of me I cannot think what it is - can anyone out there explain this?
One thing we did see today was a team of 50 people harvesting the lemons!! The lemons in question looked to have been ripe for ages (there may be a perfectly logical reason to leave them ripe on the tree for 2 months or more - who knows? - it may be to do with supply and demand, and there may be no detriment to leaving them ripe on the tree).

Trucks in the field offloading the empty orange-coloured crates

A new day and more empty crates to fill

 However, the team of pickers swarmed all over the trees with black plastic buckets which they filled with hand - picked lemons (they seemed to be sorting them as they went - picking some and rejecting others).

Hand-picking the lemons into black plastic buckets

They then transferred the lemons into orange coloured crates which had been offloaded by a truck earlier in the day.
Later the truck returned and was loaded with the full boxes, presumably to a packing and labelling facility prior to export.

Loading the crates of lemons onto pallets in the trucks

The end of the picking day

The pickers going home, and the lemons going to the processing plant

I believe Morrisons supermarket pack and label all their produce themselves, so maybe the full crates will go straight to them. Other UK supermarkets will have facilities in Spain to pack and label, and receive them in UK ready for immediate sale.
So, if you see lemons in Asda, Waitrose, Tesco or Sainsburys that say "produce of Murcia or Valencia ", we may just have seen them being picked!!!