2010 Fruit Year in Review Part 3

 Tree Fruit Year in Review Part 3. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

The 2010 tree fruit growing season got off to a slow start as a long, cold spring kept trees from setting fruit for about 2 weeks. That seemed to push the entire season by at least two weeks right through harvest. Even so fruit growers across the state saw good returns on their products. Rainier cherry producers got a bit of a boost according to BJ Thurlby with NW Cherries.

THURLBY: The industry took it to another level last year and voted to actually put color in as a standard and so what we’ve done is created a premium designation which would be the highest designation you could receive on a Rainier cherry. 

Honey bees were again a major topic and Robyn Rose, with USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service talked about a new survey of the bees.

ROSE: This survey is focusing on pests and diseases of honey bees and it is a comprehensive survey looking at all of the known pests and diseases of honey bees in the U.S. right now and also we are looking for potentially exotic pests that we had not found yet.

In August, Mexico decided to add a 20% tariff to apples Mark Powers, Vice President of the Northwest Horticulture Council said they were just trying to get some reaction.

POWERS: So now we’re more than a year on into the retaliatory tariffs and Mexico is increasingly frustrated by the lack of attention the issue is getting or lack of a solution so they decided to add some additional products to the list and they dropped some other products off the list.

That’s today’s Fruit Grower Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.