Pear Harvest Pt 1
With today's Fruit Grower Report, I'm Bob Larson. With the Northwest pear harvest all but complete for the season, reports coming in are looking pretty good for growers.Pear Bureau Northwest's Kathy Stephenson says the numbers look to be a little shy of estimates ...
KATHY STEPHENSON ... "You know, we have about 18.3-million boxes planned, that was the estimate we got, and I think we're going to be slightly below that. And, so what we're seeing is that we didn't have a lot of that heat near the end of the season. Our sizing is a little, you know, one or two sizes smaller in some cases, which means that more fruit in a box takes up less boxes."
Stephenson says pear SIZE will also play a role in this year's crop ...
KATHY STEPHENSON ... "So, we're probably going to be down slightly and that's going to be, you know, for the season. There'll be enough pears to supply the United States and, because the pears are being a little bit smaller, it'll probably mean good for the export market. Folks in other countries tend to really like those smaller pears compared to the United States. So, that's probably going to be good for export plus we think the dollar's in good condition so exports should be doing well, should help us get good prices and move some of the fruit off-shore too."
Stephenson says Bosc pears were inexplicably down this year about 16 percent and Anjous were off in certain growing regions for an overall drop of about 7 percent below the five-year average.
Listen tomorrow for more on this year's pear crop and why the numbers aren't necessarily a bad thing.