Soft Fruit Update

Stone Fruit Update. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

We have been looking at how the cherry crop has been shaping up and BJ Thurlby says it looks like it will be a good crop, perhaps even a great crop. But Thurlby says there is other fruit coming on the heels of the cherry crop.

THURLBY: The overall soft fruit crop U.S. wise is down a little this year. It’s late. Our fruit here in the state is late as well. We picked our first peaches here this last week and delivered - I think most of the warehouses I talked to got their first peaches in on Wednesday or Thursday so we’re just getting going on soft fruit, peaches and nectarines.

Apricots is another soft fruit.

THURLBY: Apricots - it’s been a pretty good year if you happen to have apricots in terms of demand because we only had half a crop but overall we’ve seen people promoting them when they can get them which has been positive and it’s kept demand moving forward. And the cots that we’ve had, between consumers and retailers once again have received rave reviews so that’s been a positive as well.

Thurlby says if you are hungry for some good northwest soft fruit...hang on.

THURLBY: The Washington stuff is just getting going so give it another week and we’ll start to see Washington peaches and nectarines show up in the stores. You have to look now because most stores are getting one or two boxes of apricots just to have them in stock but that’s indicative of the short crop we’ve had.

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