Apples Soon to be Underway

Apples Soon to be Underway. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. Hard to believe we are coming up on the halfway point in July. With that fall season around the corner will also come the 2010 apple season with harvest on some early varieties only about a month or so away. Todd Fryhover, president of the Washington Apple Commission says this year has seen a good sell off of last season's apples. FRYHOVER: We like to continue to have that continuity between one crop and another so that we can continue to support our retailers so having that supply year round is very important at least on the big 3 varieties of course being Red Delicious, Golden Delicious and Granny Smith. According to Fryhover it is a bit early though to discuss crop estimates. FRYHOVER: It's still little early to be talking about any specific numbers. I think in general it looks to be a larger crop volume than we had last year, of course last year we were off compared to the year before so we look to have good numbers. There is some concern about the size of the crop, sizing specifically. Cool temperatures and the long spring growing season may result in smaller fruit size. Fryhover says the exports are still strong but down a bit. FRYHOVER: We've got great demand on our Red Delicious; markets like China continue to move heavy although I will say that recently the numbers have dropped. We'll be off of last years numbers because we had the record 35-plus million last year. This year we expect to do 7 or 8% less than that but with the reduced crop volume in comparison that is a good number for Washington. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.