Agribusiness Update for Friday 05/23/14

The northwest cherry crop is being estimated at 20-million boxes according to the latest count determined during the 2014 Five-State Cherry Growers meeting. Growers from Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and Utah who attended the meeting felt comfortable that barring any problems from Mother Nature that the estimate was pretty sound. California's cherry crop this year has been decimated so there are hopes that the northwest crop will make up for the lack of product from down south.

WSU's new apple variety has a new name. Previously it was known simply as WA-38 but the announcement was made on Wednesday that the new commercial name chosen is Cosmic Crisp. Cosmic Crisp apples will not be widely available to consumers until 2019. WSU is working with a number of Northwest Nursery Improvement Institute-affiliated nurseries and other producers to increase WA 38 planting stock. The university is holding a drawing to assign the limited number of trees available to Washington growers for planting in 2017.

That's today's Agribusiness Update from the Ag Information Network.