Cidermaker's Toolkit

Cider has been rapidly growing here in the northwest. New cider makers and orchardists are specializing in the production of the beverage. Sherrye Wyatt with the Northwest Cider Association says there is a new tool for anyone interested in making cider.

WYATT: The Cidermaker's Toolkit was a project that we started this last year and part of it started because our veterans kept getting calls from newcomers to the industry and they were asking all of these questions and we realized that we probably needed to create a place where they could go on our website and find all of the answers to those questions.

She says there are a lot of links to additional information from markets to regulatory information.

WYATT: What we decided is to have it work kind of like a Wikipedia where people can go in and add information if they have knowledge that perhaps was missing. We are seeking that from people throughout the industry, maybe it's an orchardist who has more information than we had on orcharding. Sort of an open forum but there's still going to be and approval process required so that we can validate and make sure that it's credible information.

If you have a question that's not answered yet Wyatt says you just need to email them.

WYATT: INFO @ NWCIDER.COM and pose that question and then we would do the research with you or find someone who knew the answers and just build this thing out so that it can fill all of our needs. It was help funded through the Oregon Department of Agriculture funding.

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