09/09/08 Checking on the Apple Harvest

Checking on the Apple Harvest. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. Apples are starting to come off the trees around the state and Todd Fryhover with the Washington State Apple Commission says things are going well. FRYHOVER: Last Friday I went out and looked at some Gala's being harvested and there was some concern about the sizing issues with the cool summer that we've had, what I saw was some real good sizing. Some 80's and 88's along with some smaller fruit so the cool weather has not significantly affected us as far as our sizing goes although we might be one size smaller than normal. Fryhover says the coloration on the Gala's was fantastic but: FRYHOVER: We might be about 10% short of estimate just because of the sizing but again another weeks worth of harvest and we'll have better numbers next week. Moving on to Golden Delicious. FRYHOVER: Golden Delicious we're probably 7 to 10 days away from harvesting. Thus far the sizing looks to be normal. 88  100. The finish looks to be terrific. There's some smooth skin out there with green to creamy yellow background color that looks nice. We probably are going to be looking at a normal crop or close to estimate. Most of the growers are happy. You know it's still a little bit early. We're 7 to 14 days late so normally we would already be into our Golden harvest so everybody is just a little bit behind schedule. Tomorrow we look at Granny Smith and Red Delicious. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.