09/28/06 Heating up harvest

Heating up the harvest. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. With the warmer weather this past week the apple harvest has really been in full swing. But has the 80 degree plus temperatures helped or hurt the fruit? Gip Redman, fieldman for Holtzinger. REDMAN: Ultimately, probably not. It may cause the fruit to revert back to growing a little bit more as opposed to changing to sugar so, not that the starches really start expanding again but it grows into kind of a growing process which does produce more starches and not as much sugar but it will be minimal and with the cool nights it's counter acting that. Now if we get up close to the 90's then we're going to start seeing more damage. According to Redman there is another benefit to the warmer weather at this time. REDMAN: We probably are just buying a little harvest time which they certainly need out there. Apple harvest is really into full swing and Redman says they are probably nearing the halfway mark. REDMAN: You can drive up and down the roads and see how many trucks are on the roads. We're just really getting into Red harvest. Golden harvest. Gala's are done. Jonagold's are better that half done but Reds are the big thing still, there's a lot of them. Granny's are really just getting going other than some of the early picked Granny's. We've still got all those Fuji's out there that haven't been touched and Pink Lady's and Braeburn's are just getting ready to start so yeah, halfway maybe. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.