Record Months for Apples

Record Months for Apples. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

Dan Kelly, assistant manager of the Washington Growers Clearing House in Wenatchee stopped me at the recent Washington Hort convention in Yakima and told me that apples were seeing some really good numbers and that it looked like record numbers were in order.

KELLY: Demand has been pretty high and I can’t really come up with a cast in stone answer for that other than the East coast got started a little earlier than we did. We were about a week late so they started blowing through their fruit pretty fast. In fact I saw a report today that they’re going to be done really early

It could be as early as May or June and he says the export market is doing well.

KELLY: And the rest of the world crop was also down as far as volume is concerned. The movement has been great, part of it has been quality of fruit and fruit size and I know the retail industry in the U.S. has been pushing fresh fruits and has done some price reduction so all that helps.

Kelly says that Washington marketers set a new monthly record for apple shipments in November, then promptly shattered that mark in December. He adds that solid movement has continued in January, another indication of a good marketing season for the state's growers. More tomorrow.

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