1/21/09 Nursery Days

Nursery Days. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. Even with all the cold, snow and ice the northwest has been dealing with this winter it is time to start thinking about the 2009 planting season. Ron Everts is the manager of Brandt's Fruit Trees and he says that 2008 was a pretty good year and that growers are looking for some new things for the future. EVERTS: Well the growers are still heading down the road of the new varietals. Those varietals that are managed from IP standpoint, intellectual properties, that's where the largest movement is and you check with all the nurseries virtually all that product is sold out. The traditional stuff is still on hand. Everts talks about some of those new varietals. EVERTS: It's such things as the Pink Lady apple, some of the early Fuji's. We deal with Morning Mist, an early Fuji. Some of the new cherry varieties that come out of the Prosser experiment station as Benton and Chelan which is one of the older ones now still being bought up. When we as the consumer go to the store and pick up a bag of cherries Everts says we may be getting different varieties. EVERTS: The thing that happens with cherries since there are so many varieties most of them will still be sold under the banner as dark sweets. Probably most people won't realize some of the varieties they are eating because everything is still being compared to Bing. Bing has been in existence a long time but an excellent piece of fruit. The fruit season will be starting in earnest in the next few months and it will be interesting to see how things shape up. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.