Apples Are Starting

Apples Are Starting. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

Just the other day I picked up a bag of some really incredible Gala apples. Fresh from the northwest and tasted…well in today’s language, awesome! Todd Fryhover with the Washington Apple Commission.

FRYHOVER: The Gala’s especially at this time of year and obviously for the balance of the year also but they are just aromatic, they taste fantastic, they’ve got great color and crispness. This is the time of year for sure to get out there and really enjoy these Washington apples.

Of course fresh apples at the market means harvest season is beginning.

FRYHOVER: Technically we’re in the last 2 weeks of last season, ’08-’09 but we’re moving very, very quickly into the next season with Gala harvest obviously under way, you know Bartlett pears are being harvested as well so this is kind of the beginning of the stressful season for those of us in the apple industry.

According to Fryhover this upcoming season looks to be another great one.

FRYHOVER: Washington is anticipating 107 million boxes of fruit which is down about 2 million from where we are going to end up this season. There’s a couple of characteristics that make this crop a little bit different than last season, the first one is that we had very little – although we did have some but very little winter or spring frost issues and we have a king bloom crop this year rather than a side bloom crop so we are going to see number one better shape, number two a return to more traditional sizes and we should have fantastic finish on the fruit as well.

That’s today’s Fruit Grower Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.