08/29/08 Wrapping Up Cherry Season

Wrapping Up the Cherries. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. Cherry season is officially over. The last of the picking has pretty much been complete and even though we knew it was going to be a short season due to the cool spring, BJ Thurlby with the NW Cherry Growers says it wasn't too bad. THURLBY: We're going to finish up right in the 9.3 to 9.4 million box range. So it's actually a little bit longer than we originally anticipated. You know the nuance of this year is that there just wasn't that many cherries before the 4th of July which make it a challenge to garner the shelf space and the excitement that we generally get coming into the season. Grocers like to know that there is a good selection of product out there before they commit space in the fruit and produce section. Thurlby says the peak was on July 11th and was the latest peak they have ever had. But how about quality? THURLBY: We're going to have a predominance of 10 ½ row and larger cherries overall and as an indicator of quality that just tells the story that the growers brought the right fruit into the market. Numbers on individual varieties are still coming in but Thurlby says as expected, they are shorter. THURLBY: Obviously Bing was shorter this year probably than it's been in a long time. We know that Rainier was less than a million boxes and last year was 1.7 million. We're seeing some very good numbers on some late varieties. There was a lot of Lapin's on the late end a lot of Sweetheart's, a lot of Skeena's. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.