12/01/06 New Table Grapes are Great

New table grapes are great! I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. A big downside to the winter months is the lack of available fresh fruit. Producers and scientists are continually working to be able to store fruit longer and extend growing seasons. If you love table grapes, you're going to love the new variety, Autumn King. RAMMING: Autumn King is our late, white, seedless table grape that's just been introduced. It will extend the season of Thompson seedless because if you have to store Thompson seedless this long their starting to get kind of old in storage and when we can pick Autumn King in October we'll have fresh fruit available for the consumers. That's David Ramming, Horticulturist with the USDA's Agricultural Research Service. He says besides extending the season on fresh grapes the new variety has an added benefit for producers. RAMMING: The other attribute that the growers are very excited about is the berries are very large without commercial treatments with gerillic (sp) acid like they would with the Thompson seedless. And the berries end up even larger than what they can make with Thompson seedless. From that standpoint the growers will not have to do some of those treatments which sill save them money in the production of the grape. According to Ramming it has been 13 years since the Autumn King was originally created to full production which is about average. He also says the grapes taste good too. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.