07/15/08 The Present and Future of Pears

Present and Future of Pears. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. Last year was a good year for pears according to Kevin Moffitt, President of Pear Bureau Northwest. MOFFITT: This season is just wrapping up and I expect to show we've sold 99% of the crop to date and actually it came out to be a pretty good season especially in terms of returns to the grower. It was the third largest crop in our history so good sized crop with good returns to the grower. That crop report was expected out yesterday. Moffitt says the have been a bit cautious when it comes to the next season. MOFFITT: We are anticipating about a 10% drop from last year's large crop but still within about 4% of the 5 year average. As you recall we had a very cold spell in late April which damaged a lot of the fruit and then really delayed the crop. We weren't as confident in this late May estimate as we quite often are because the crop was really in some cases almost 2 weeks later than expected They are looking at doing a bit of an update report but Moffitt says that things are still looking pretty good. MOFFITT: Not quite as bas as we thought they could have been. Always if you are the grower or the area that was hit by the freeze and if your area gets hit harder then it's a shame for that particular grower but in general we're expecting a crop just slightly under the 5-year average. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.