Blueberry Harvest

Blueberry Harvest

I’m Lacy Gray with Washington Ag Today.

Blueberry harvest is in full swing on the west side of the state and is 75 to 85% wrapped up on the east side of the Cascades, although some of the late variety berries will still be coming off through October. Executive Director of the Washington Blueberry Commission, Alan Schreiber, reports that blueberry growers seem to be having yet another record year.

SCHREIBER: We’re going to have a record year in terms of volume. We’ve had a lot of growth in our industry both east and west. Perhaps the most remarkable thing was we had some cool weather, and then we had some warm weather and then we had some cool weather earlier in the season and it resulted in a kind of concentrated set of fruit. So we had a lot of fruit come off all at the same time, and so we had some really big picks of berries.

Schreiber says that heading into harvest many growers were concerned that there wouldn’t be enough workers to pick the crop.

SCHREIBER: But as it turns out labor was just barely adequate, so we had enough to get a lot of the crop off. The bulk of the crop in eastern Washington is picked. In northwest Washington and Whatcom County where there’s a large concentration of berry production they’re just getting started on the berry harvest and so they’re still in the thick of it.

Overall forecast is looking quite good.

SCHREIBER: Two years ago it was 60-million and that was a record. Last year it was 70-million and that’s a record. And we’re forecasting 80-million. Now, there’s considerable debate about whether we’re going to hit that but I mean we’re going to have more than we had last year for sure.

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