Halfway Done Part 2

Halfway Done Part 2. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

Yesterday Bruce Grim, Executive Director of the Washington State Horticultural Association talked about the difference between today’s harvest and those of the past and he said even last years harvest was something the industry learned a great deal from.

GRIM: We were rather surprised obviously as an industry by the size of the crop we picked last year and this was not anticipated given the relatively small size of the fruit that was on the trees so to have picked that volume came as a surprise and I think many growers believing it was a small crop felt that there would be value in virtually everything that was on the tree and they picked it that way and consequently we were surprised and in a sense paid a price

Grim says that the lesson learned was that not everything you pick is worth the price.

GRIM: I go by a lot of orchards and I see a lot of fruit on the ground, I hear growers talk about some, not significant problems of stem bowl cracking and sunburn in Gala and their efforts to make sure that stuff was left behind and by left behind I generally think that means on the ground because processor prices are not sufficient to induce them to put it in a bin and haul it to the warehouse.

And Grim talks about another minor issue with this year’s harvest.

GRIM: Golden’s appear to have a bit of a bitter pit problem. I don’t think it is necessarily tremendously significant although there may be some locations where it is.

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