02/26/08 What's Next For the Fruit Industry?

What's Next in the Fruit Industry? I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. 2008 promises to be a good year for the fruit industry. Labor will probably be tight and Mother Nature needs to weigh in but with plenty of moisture already it is starting off on a good foot. But what about 2009 or 2010? Gip Redman, Oregon Cherry Growers and long time field man says that growers really need to think forward. REDMAN: They really need to be designing orchards and I'm talking fruit now as opposed to open land or anything like that but getting into new systems that make more efficient use of what labor you have and getting them ready for some sort of mechanical age. Ah, yes&the Jetson's version of the orchard of the future. And it is probably not going to be a choice in the near future. Redman says it's a hot topic at most of the meetings this past winter. REDMAN: I think we are going to be forced to and I'm hearing a lot more talk about that and a lot of it is from the presenters, not so much the growers. Some of the real progressive ones, yes, they are but you get out into the mainstream growers and they're not thinking that. "Yea, that a good id  we'll see how that turns out. I'll let Joe do it first. I think there's going to be some people caught. And interestingly, the future really isn't the future anymore. Redman says it's now. REDMAN: What we used to think about as 10 years or so transition has shortened to 5 and I don't know that everybody is aware of that and is it going to be shorter to 2 next year? (laughs) If that's the case then we're all behind and way behind. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.