Pear Report Part 3

Pear Report Part 3. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. The 2010 Pear crop looks to be a fairly average crop which should mean that prices should hold for producers. Kevin Moffitt, with Pear Bureau NW says there is still some cleanup from the '09 crop. MOFFITT: Well we do have about – probably 5 or 6 hundred thousand boxes still available from last years harvest and that will take us into, right up – there'll be some pears available up into California's harvest which will begin in probably just about 2 weeks and then our harvest for Bartlett's will probably begin in the second week of August. The cool, wet weather has had an impact on the pear crop as well. MOFFITT: Because of our cool and wet spring we'll probably have a fair amount of sizes of fruit meaning the sizing is probably going to be smaller than last year on average so we'll have a lot of fruit available for the export market and with this size crop I think that's going to be a good balance as well. The export market makes up for about 35% of the fresh crop. It will also soon be time to break out the pear promotions. MOFFITT: We just launched a Spanish language website. We're also doing some training promotions with some other commodity groups like the apple commission and the cherries in some of our markets overseas. On the domestic front we've got lots of retailers already lined up. We're going to be doing in-store radio again. Also look for more online promotions as well. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.