CFAP Aid for Tree Fruit Pt 1

CFAP Aid for Tree Fruit Pt 1

Bob Larson
Bob Larson
With today’s Fruit Grower Report, I’m Bob Larson. The Coronavirus Food Assistance Program is welcome relief for many growers around the country, but what about our tree fruit producers here in the Pacific Northwest, and is it enough?

Mark Powers, president of the Northwest Horticultural Council, says there will likely need to be more …

POWERS … “Well, I think so. And, I don’t like to qualify my answers, but in this case, I have to. Obviously, there needs to be a Step 2 or we’re pretty certain there needs to be given the trajectory of COVID and the economy.”

Powers says it will be a good program, for some …

POWERS … “You know, this first step, apples and pears qualify, however apples don’t qualify for the, you know, there are three tranches of money or three buckets of money, and they qualify for two but not all three, whereas pears qualify for all three.”

But, Powers says the details are not yet entirely clear …

POWERS … “And so, there’s some questions we have regarding while growers appear to be eligible, and USDA has apparently allocated money to growers of these commodities, we’re not sure whether they’ll qualify.”

Signups began last week so Powers believes answers should be coming …

POWERS … “We’ll have more information and, hopefully, we’ll have some folks that start to go to the local offices and see how this process unfolds.”

Listen tomorrow for more on CFAP’s impact on fruit growers.

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BL: Welcome back to another “Fruit Bites” brought to you by Valent U.S.A. With us as always is Valent’s Allison Walston. And this week Allison, let’s talk about bitter pit in apples!

AW: Have you ever been picking out Honeycrisp apples, only to find some small, dark spots on the fruit? Those are symptoms of an apple disorder called bitter pit. And it is a calcium deficiency in the fruit.

BL: How do apples get this bitter pit disorder?

AW: It can be increased by over-stressing the trees: hot, dry weather, winter injury to the trunk or if the apples are growing too big by overthinning and in alternate-bearing lighter crop years. It can sometimes be confused with stink bug feeding since bitter pit also leaves corky, brown flesh areas under the spot.

BL: why isn’t bitter pit culled at harvest?

AW: when it appears while the apples are still on the tree, those can be culled out, but most of the damaged fruit shows up after they’ve been put in boxes and a couple of months in cold storage.

BL: Well, thanks Allison. Join us again next time for Fruit Bites, brought to you by Valent. Until then, I’m Bob Larson.

https://pnwhandbooks.org/plantdisease/host-disease/apple-malus-spp-bitter-pit

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