Pear Export Issues Part 3

Pear Export Issues part 3. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

Even though currently the U.S. does not export pears to China it could potentially be a huge market and Mike Willett with the NW Hort Council discusses some of the issues.

WILLETT: Right now the biggest issues China has identified with U.S. pear access have been codling moth and fire blight. And in their visit the only time they actually saw codling moth was when we took them up to the research station here in Wenatchee and showed them the plots Jay Brunner keeps as control plots for codling moth control materials.

He says that it really is about the only time these guest officials ever do see a codling moth although fire blight is another thing altogether.

WILLETT: We knew that was going to be a key issue and about 3 years ago a project was completed by Ken Johnson at Oregon State University that showed that the risk of transmitting fire blight on mature pears is virtually zero and really is equivalent to the work that was done on apples.

Willett says that pesticide issues have become more important on a couple of fronts.

WILLETT: Harmonization of pesticide MRL’s across the entire European Union which took place in September 2008 is something we need to think about for exports there and the finally the pending removal of a default tolerance that Canada has been using for all pesticides of point one parts per million is something we’ve been working very hard on in cooperation with a group that we’re involved with called the Minor Crop Farmer Alliance.

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