07/21/08 Apricots in Season

Apricots in Season. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. Did you know that Washington State was the second largest grower of apricots? Did you know that fresh apricots are in season right now? Here in the northwest we concentrate mainly on apples, cherries and pears but only California produces more apricots. Although according to BJ Thurlby, President of the Washington State Fruit Commission, it is still a small crop. THURLBY: It's a small deal. I mean our crop assessments are in the $50 to $60-thousand dollar range so it doesn't go much further for us promotion wise than just the northwest but because we are the only apricots on the market at this time  I mean we ship them all over the country. We produce something like 10 different varieties of apricots that are picked between June & August with "Perfection" being one of the main ones. THURLBY: And there's now some varieties that have been propagated that come off literally at the end of August and we've had challenges there actually because our "Perfections" get done there by about the middle of August and if you give the retailer a week without product on the shelf, all of a sudden it becomes a big challenge to get the product back. Thurlby says after a few flat years, things seem to be looking up. THURLBY: We hit years where California had so many in late ones that the market was a little bit overflowed because if you look at the merchandise in the store, it's very seldom that you see more than two boxes of them and that's common and that's one of the reasons why our production has kind of stayed flat but we've replanted, we've got new varieties and our strategy has been to try and fill that small niche that's out there and so far it has been quietly successful. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.