More On Apple Harvest

More On Apple Harvest. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

Todd Fryhover, President of the Washington Apple Commission says that as they near the halfway point in the 2013 harvest the quality of the crop has been good.

FRYHOVER: So far the quality of the crop is good. Gala’s is probably the only variety that maybe completely in the barn and it looks good although I will say that it was a little bit warm during harvest so the coloration isn’t exactly what we would prefer but it still is just a great quality crop.

Last year was almost a perfect year for Washington apples since the other major growing regions in North America all had some major problems. This year things are back to normal for those growers.

FRYHOVER: With Michigan and New York having larger crops, Canada returning to a normal and Mexico having what they would consider to be a large crop as well it’s going to put increased emphasis on international sales. There is a lot of interest out there but we still have a long way to go and we do have some trade policy issues that need to be resolved before we can get it into full swing but we are making progress.

Fryhover is just back from China.

FRYHOVER: We were in Hong Kong the first week in September at the Fruitlogistica Asia show. It’s a large produce convention attended by well over 10-thousand from many different countries. The Washington Apple Commission has a booth where we make available meeting rooms for the industry so that they can sit down and have one-on-one conversations with customers and potential customers.

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