Getting Ready for Apples

Getting Ready for Apples. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

Well August will soon be over and that will mean it’s just about time to start picking some apples. The 2011 crop appears to be up this year according to Todd Fryhover, President of the Washington Apple Commission.

FRYHOVER: We just concluded attendance at U.S. Apple Outlook Conference and that conference gets together basically all the people in the United States that are producers of apples and anticipates what the crop will be for this next season and it looks like the entire U.S. crop is going to be up just about 3%.

Like many other crops, this years apples are running a couple of weeks late but a large part of that increase is coming from Michigan apple producers.

FRYHOVER: Michigan is having a very large crop volume this season and with Washington being a little late. 10 days to 2 weeks, and the rest of the U.S. being on a normal harvest schedule I think we will compliment each other nicely.

Last year most of the other growing regions in the midwest and eastern U.S. had very small crops when Washington had a near record harvest.

FRYHOVER: They’re really on this high to low to high to low roller coaster. Last year they were hit pretty hard with frost and they had around 14-million packages in total. This year, similar to us here in Washington, they’ve had great spring weather and the apples are growing immensely and they are going to project a 26.1-million carton crop.

More tomorrow on the 2011 apple season.

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