09/26/06 Pear Harvest

Harvest time for Pears. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. Alongside the many apple harvesters are those picking pears as well. Its harvest time for many crops and Pear Bureau Northwest's Kevin Moffitt says things are actually looking pretty good. MOFFITT: Harvest is coming off very well. Looks to be an excellent Bartlett crop. It's going to be a little bit higher than we had first anticipated but we are still settling in on the numbers. And it's probably going to be peaking on 90 size Bartlett pears, maybe followed by 80. So those are very good sizes for the domestic pear market. The fruit is sizing up a little bit better than they had predicted so it's filling more boxes than they thought it would. Moffitt met with members of the Pear Bureau Board of Directors last Friday to discuss the crop. The biggest issue like everyone else it labor. MOFFITT: We in the Northwest like most other agricultural farmers across the country are seeing and that's a big concern and probably will be more so as we get more apples harvested at the same time as pears. According to Moffitt, you'll soon see some big promotional tie-ins. MOFFITT: We're also partnering with Disney and Disney Radio and they're going use some of our images of our Pear Buddies dressed up in Halloween costumes and we're going to have a lot of activities on Disney Radio leading up to Halloween and some activities based around supermarkets in partnership with that. And those markets will be tagged on the Disney Radio to bring people into their stores. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.