06/19/06 Fruit Crop Update

Fruit crop update. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. Last weeks rain and hail damage to cherry and apple crops in parts of Washington did not do as much damage as some initial reports made it sound. Of course there are some farmers that will not have much of a crop this year but overall the cherry and apple crops still look quite good according to Dan Kelly of the Washington Growers Clearing House. KELLY: When we look at the entire industry we're looking at maybe 10 percent of the crop being cherries anyway and you know we're still going to have close to a record crop of cherries. I know we had damage up here out of Wenatchee, had hail up in Blewett Pass then it skipped over and hit some of the Entiat Valley. Kelly said they need to be cautious regarding initial damage reports. KELLY: There's devastation in certain spots but the overall outlook is not so bad and we're really concerned about it getting out that half the crop is gone and then we don't get the labor up here because the news travels down to California, Texas, wherever and then now all of a sudden we have a huge issue because we don't have enough labor to pick the fruit because we've got a lot more fruit than it appears. While the rains damaged the cherries, hail in some areas damaged apple crops. But Kelly is still very optimistic about this year's harvest. KELLY: I think it's important that people know that we still have close to a record crop of cherries and the apple crop at this point looks like probably still one of the top 5 still even with the damage that we've had so we still need plenty of labor and theres still going to be plenty of fruit. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.