11/06/06 What`s Next?

What's next? I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. Fruit harvest is wrapping up and in the not too distant past, this was a time for farmers to think about relaxing. Maybe do a little hunting and spending time with the family. Most producers don't have that luxury anymore according to Jim McPherson with the Washington State Tree Fruit Research Commission. MCPHERSON: You can't. Can you? We used to be able to do that, go elk hunting and call it good until March. It must have been nice, but not anymore. But seriously Jim. MCPHERSON: We've got some neat things going. You know harvest is winding up and a lot of our research projects are doing their analysis and we've got some real forward movement on the automation and mechanization stuff. Some real good interplay at the state and federal levels politically so I think overall things are moving in a pretty exciting direction. One key issue that is one the front burner right now is the Guthion ban. MCPHERSON: Our industry is going to be asked to phase out the use of Guthion, a major organophosphate chemical in the next four years perhaps. So we're losing what has been a stand by chemical and we've got to figure how to manage our way out of that. You don't do that by spraying more and more often. We actually have a strategy of going back to EPA and going back to the state government and say we can do this but we're going to need help in the implementation and education process to get our growers to use the programs that we feel research has proved work. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.