06/27/07 One More Cherry Check

One more cherry check. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. Yesterday we talked with Gip Redman with Oregon Cherry Growers about the cherry crop and today it's time to chat with BJ Thurlby with the Northwest Cherry Growers and he echoes Gip's comments. THURLBY: This Bing crop is a little bit lighter than we had projected and it's not one person. I think the whole industry, you know we looked at the Bing crop and thought we had a larger crop but almost every grower I'm talking to is saying I'm coming out 30 to 40% light on my Bings' and there's areas where 3 weeks ago a grower would have said that he would plan on picking 6 or 7 tons per acre and they're picking 2 tons per acre. So just like me&the cherry crop is short but good. THURLBY: It's a little shorter but we still have a great crop and we've shipped just under 4 million boxes in the industry and demand has been great and the quality of the product as it arrives at the store level has just been off-the-charts great. So that's a great start to the cherry season so far. Let's hope these growers get a few more tons than what we're hearing in a lot of different corners of the northwest. Picking has actually been moving along nicely for both Bings and Rainiers. The Lapin variety will start later. THURLBY: Rainiers kind of butt up against  right against Bing, maybe a little bit later but they're at the same time so we're in the process of harvesting Rainiers. We've harvested  of the 4 million boxes we have harvested, about 400-thousand boxes are Rainers and we've got another million to go. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.