Good Cranberry Crop

Good Cranberry Crop. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

Won’t belong now until the family gathers around the table for the Thanksgiving feast and one mainstay of course is cranberries. Kim Patten with WSU-Longbeach says this was good year.

PATTEN: It wasn’t a record but it was pretty close to it. I think the total was - Ocean Spray was 192-thousand barrels so probably with the independents we’re probably close to about 200-thousand barrels and I think that the only crop that was better was in 1994 which was a little over 200-thousand so we’re doing good. Growers were up 25 - 30%

Cranberries are harvested either dry or wet and due to the drought this year the wet harvest had some challenges.

PATTEN: We had issues and actually we still do with enough water for harvest for the wet harvest farms. There is still one grower who doesn’t have enough water to harvest. He’s still waiting for more rain. For the dry picked farms, it was a great year for them because it was basically dry.

The northwest is not the largest cranberry growing region.

PATTEN: Oregon was up and I think BC was up. Oregon had a decent year and BC was ok. Wisconsin was down. As goes Wisconsin goes the overall supply so if they’re down that might help - at least dampen the over supply in the market. Massachusetts was up and New Jersey was down. New Jersey had a lot of fruit rot. Quebec I think was down some also.

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