Annual Hort Convention

The 108th annual Northwest Horticultural Expo attracted nearly 1,600 people in Yakima this week for informational meetings and a trade show with 250 exhibitors where growers learned about industry products, equipment and services. Executive Director of the Washington State Horticulture Association, Bruce Grim, talks about why attendance numbers for this year’s expo were so good.

GRIM: Well, we had something over 1200 registered as of about mid-day last Thursday, and that’s for the regular session. Over 270 registered for the Spanish Language session. We have four pesticides credits on the English Language sessions, and additional four on the Spanish Language so we are suspecting that’s probably spiking attendance, but so is the fact that we had a very good year last year and a better one in progress this year on the apple side of things, so there’s a lot of smiling faces out there.

Washington’s apple industry produced a record crop this year of more than 121 million boxes. Pair that with extremely good sales, due to a high demand for apples resulting from damaging frosts in competing states, and no wonder there were a number of smiling faces at this year’s expo. Washington’s apple industry is reported to have contributed over $7 billion to the state’s economy during the 2010 - 2011 marketing season, employing nearly 60 thousand people, and generating wages of roughly $1.95 billion.

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I’m Lacy Gray and that’s Washington Ag Today on the Ag Information Network.