Cherry Crop Hanging In There & Acreage Deadline Extended

Cherry Crop Hanging In There & Acreage Deadline Extended

I’m Lacy Gray with Washington Ag Today.

Mother Nature has not been kind this year to the state’s cherry crop, but BJ Thurlby with Northwest Cherry Growers says they are still hearing positive news from growers.

THURLBY: This crop that’s been depleted by Mother Nature seems to have pretty good legs on it still, that’s a big positive. So overall we’re hearing what we call repeat business coming back into the industry. We’re not even quite to the halfway point on this crop. We’ve shipped about 7-million boxes, just under 7-million, and we’re thinking the remaining crop has another 7-million boxes, or so, left to go.

Thurlby says that earlier estimates for the 2013 crop was around 18.3 million boxes, but now they are thinking that it will more than likely be 14 to 14.5 million boxes.

THURLBY: Certainly Mother Nature dealt what I consider kind of a sour blow to the growers and we’ve lost close to 4 million boxes all total. The good news is the back end of the crop is still very viable and we’ve been out looking at cherries the last few days and there’s this now gorgeous fruit coming across the lines. Now we’re watching cherries run that are 300 to 350 firmness which is what you want - that’s what the consumer wants, that’s what the export markets want.

Farmers and landowners now have until Friday, August 2 to submit their annual report of acreage to their local FSA county office. The original deadline would have been today by 5pm. Farm Service Agency Administrator Juan M. Garcia stated that the agency wanted to ensure producers maintain their program benefits by filing their reports accurately and in a timely manner for all crops and land uses, including prevented and failed acreage. Any questions on deadlines should be directed to your FSA county office.

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