2011 Apple Update

2011 Apple Update. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

The 2011 apple harvest is pretty much over and in some cases it might be more a case of giving up. Todd Fryhover, President of the Washington Apple Commission talks about how the season ended.

FRYHOVER: The most recent number which is November is 101,700,000 boxes. but I still think it’s going to be December before we actually - well the storage report will come out I think like December 5 so that number is the number that I would say is the defining moment for this years crop.

I asked Fryhover a blunt question of “what happened?”

FRYHOVER: (Laughs) Well you know I guess the first thing that happened was Mother Nature threw us a curveball. You know harvest started two weeks late, the whole labor issue was out therewith the lack of time to harvest this crop in the normal time frame that we’re used to. Winter or cold weather came pretty much at it’s normal time so two weeks of delayed harvest just didn’t work in our favor.

There are stories out there of apples still hanging on trees.

FRYHOVER: I think the general consensus is that most people did have the time to get most of their crops off so it’s not a major disaster as far as leaving fruits on the tree however we had to spend more time and more financial resources to get that done.

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