Northwest Pear Outlook Pt 2
With today’s Fruit Grower Report, I’m Bob Larson. As harvest begins on the early varieties, the Northwest pear crop appears to have weathered the extreme summer weather.
Pear Bureau Northwest president, Kevin Moffitt says there could be some issues like sunburn, but things are looking pretty good early on …
MOFFITT … “I can tell you that, frankly, the sunburn hasn’t so far, it hasn’t turned out to be as big an issue as they feared. And, I think part of that is the fact that a lot of the pear trees are still big old pears with a lot of canopy, a lot of shade.”
And this year at least, Moffitt says that seems to have worked out for the better …
MOFFITT … “Unlike some of the new plantings of apples and even some of the pears, where they’re on trellises and things like that, so they’re more exposed to the direct sun. So, I think that the fruit on the outer canopy potentially may have had some extra sun on them, but there’s a lot of fruit inside that probably didn’t get excess sun. That’s positive and, I’m hearing that the Bartletts that are coming off the tree have been, in a lot of the districts, are just very great quality. So, I think we came out of it better than feared, but we still have a ways to go.”
So at this point, Moffitt says we’re happy …
MOFFITT … “Things are looking pretty optimistic from the retailer’s standpoint, the grower’s standpoint, and the shippers, so we’re looking forward to a good season.”
The USDA’s National Ag Statistics Service forecast Northwest pears at 670,000 tons, less than 1% lower than last year.
