More On The Apple Harvest

The 2015 apple harvest is in full swing and besides the wildfire troubles in some of the growing areas labor has been the only other real issue to plague apple producers. One issue that is monitored every year is how the previous years crop has been sold and it's important that it gets sold before the new crop comes in. Todd Fryhover with the Washington Apple Commission says this year looks pretty good.

FRYHOVER: We always have a little bit of fruit leftover from the previous season and that makes a lot of sense when you talk about places like Mexico where there's a 40-day cold treatment so continuous availability even into what might be the twelve or thirteenth month is a good thing for continuity in the marketplace but we're real close to cleaning up. I would expect by the end of September all of the old fruit will be gone and consumed and we'll have nothing but new varieties available.

Mentioning the fires, there have been a lot of questions from people outside the fire areas about how that may affect the crop.

FRYHOVER: The problem that we've seen from the fires is not necessarily on losses but it's about the conditions that the harvester have to work in. It's been smoky, it's been difficult, harvest has been delayed at best but I don't think there's going to be any long-term issues.

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