Concord Grape Harvest

Concord Grape Harvest. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. We tend to forget that in addition to the many acres of wine grapes here in the northwest this is also home to some of the most fragrant and colorful grapes that we as kids fall in love with, the Concord. Mike Concienne with National Grape Cooperative says they are in full harvest mode. CONCIENNE: Well for us we are approaching 50% being done. Quality is excellent, really good quality this year. Good color; very good color. Sugar solids are close to 17% sugar. Yields are down below average although it appears at this time we may be picking a little over our estimate so I'm guessing we'll be around close to 7 ½ tons to the acre. Compared to last years crop Concienne says it's down. CONCIENNE: If you want to compare it to last year we're quite a bit down. I would say 20% less than last year and like I said it's a little bit below average, a long term average on a per acre basis. The one thing that's making this year different than other years is we're extremely late. That long, cool, damp spring really played heck with all the northwest crops. CONCIENNE: We had the second latest bloom on record and then the latest verasian which is when the grapes start turning color, 5% color; we had the latest on record this year. We were two weeks late just getting started so we're just praying we don't encounter any frost. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.