11-10 FB Snapshot

 What to consider for next year. Michael Stolp  works for Northwest Farm Credit Services and puts together an analysis of agriculture throughout the Northwest for this harvest year.In tree fruit we have some interesting things that have occurred. We expect the wet cool spring that we had to result in a smaller apple crop then we have had in past years. One of the key challenges in the apple industry is pickers. There are more apples than there are pickers. Cherries on the other hand had a fantastic year. This marks the 1^st season where there were more cherries in August than they were in July, so we had good production as well as good prices in an extended marketing season.

In the wine industry everybody’s eyes are on the weather. We are looking for nice fall weather to get that crop off the vines. Overall the wine industry has done very well despite our tough economic times. As we continue to look to the consumer and home starts we see struggles in the forest products industry and the nursery/ greenhouse industry because they are struggling with uncertainty.