Opportunity For Washington Apples

Opportunity For Washington Apples. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

As we reported the Michigan apple crop has been reduced by at least 50% if not more and according to Todd Fryhover, President of the Washington Apple Commission:

FRYHOVER: There’s more than just those guys back east, too, but Ontario, Canada is another area that’s been hit pretty hard here recently as well and that’s a big supplier to that Toronto, Montreal, Nova Scotia area of the world.

For northwest fruit growers this has been a positive time with a very mild winter and early spring.

FRYHOVER: We really have a lot of optimism going into this next crop year, Greg. We see very little frost damage here in the State of Washington. Growers have been very aggressive in pruning over the winter time. We’re thinning our buds now looking for better sizes - optimum quality. So we are anticipating perhaps maybe a little larger crop than normal from Washington.

Of course it is very early to begin making predictions about this year’s crop but Fryhover says this just might wind up being a fantastic year.

FRYHOVER: You know realistically it does look very optimistic for the apple growers in Washington and I say that in complete truth. I mean it appears that there’s reduced volume in the U.S. market, there’s reduced volume in the Canadian market. The Chilean fruit appears to be moving out in an orderly fashion and that really is a critical component to the success of this year’s crop was that the export markets were hungry for fruit.

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