Cherries

The 2014 cherry crop is beginning to come off the trees. Reports of some producers already picking some early varieties has been confirmed in Washington and others will be following suite this weekend or early next week. Cherries tend to ripen quickly and need to harvested in a timely fashion. Oregon Cherry's Gip Redman says the latest estimate of 20-million boxes is a good number.

REDMAN: I think that's a good marketing number. (It) puts everyone in the right frame of mind knowing that they need to harvest correctly, they need to get as much size as possible. On the other side the sales teams and retailers have to be aggressive. They have to know that there's plenty of fruit to move but at the same time it's not one of those that we may get bogged down in.

Redman thinks there will be a decent spread between the early and later districts which will be beneficial with the labor situation. And the fact that the California crop was very light this year.

REDMAN: The labor supply is not over abundant at this time but I think they're moving up from California now. Schools not really out until this week so families probably won't move much until next week but a lot of my growers down here have had contact with old time pickers, families and stuff and they said they were coming so I've got my fingers crossed that we will have a good supply. I don't think we are ever going to have the over-abundant supply that we once had.

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