07/09/07 How Goes the Cherry Harvest?

How is the cherry harvest? I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. We've been hearing that the quality of the cherry crop has been excellent but there hasn't been a lot of it. According to Dan Kelly with the Growers Clearing House, all things considered  it looks good. KELLY: Cherries are moving out well with good prices. Labor is variable depending on the location. In many areas there's adequate or more than adequate and in other areas mostly further up north there's still some shortages. He says a lot of those issues are due to trying to thin while still picking. KELLY: People are still trying to do some apple and pear thinning besides doing cherry picking so there's fewer people that want to do thinning and more people want to do cherry picking. Even though the immigration issue is still up in the air, Kelly hasn't seen a big problem so far this year. KELLY: Right now we're not seeing any issues  major issues with people and part of it is due to the season is spreading out real nicely harvest-wise so it hasn't come all at once and people got work done earlier than they normally would have done. But there is a big unknown hanging out there. KELLY: We still don't k now what's going to happen in apples and pears because that's when we have the bulk of the people we need but right now it's definitely better than last year but is it where we need to be  no it's not but it's definitely better than last year. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.