Mercer Family Donation

WSU's new Wine Science Center received a big financial boost from the Mercer family. The announcement was made at the annual Washington Association of Wine Grape Growers Conference. Patsy Mercer told the gathering that the family would be donating $250 thousand dollars. Kent Waliser, Past Chair of the Washington State Wine Commission talks about the donation.

WALISER: There's quite a few founding members of this wine industry that have stepped forward with significant donations but this one's pretty special too because it's $250-thousand dollars from the Mercer family, a long time ag family in the Horse Heaven Hills and involved in the grape industry and started one of the most famous vineyards in the state, Champoux and now they are in their own winery, Mercer Estates. It's a big deal to this industry to have those kinds of founding members to step forward with a significant gift.

The monies will establish the "Bud" Mercer Greenhouse, in memory of Milton "Bud" Mercer, Jr. for his pioneering role in Washington agriculture. 

WALISER: And the Wine Science Center needs a greenhouse to do the kind of research that we want to do. Every great wine growing area in the world has research that's done by the industry, for the industry where that industry is and while we have a lot of scientists at WSU currently doing research they're not focused in a central location in the wine grape industry. This Wine Science Center now brings us a focal point, the hub of wheel if you will.

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