Smaller Apples for Export

Smaller Apples for Export. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

The 2015 apple crop may very well not be a record crop. There will be a lot of apples but the high heat has been affecting the size.

FRYHOVER: What we see is a stunting of the apple growth during this time so they typically don’t grow which frankly can be a good thing when we look at our opportunities both domestically and internationally we can sell a tremendous amount of 80’s, 88’s, 100’s, 113’s. It’s when we get those 56’s and 64’s, those very large apples that creates additional pressure on the marketplace.

That’s Todd Fryhover, President of the Washington Apple Commission who says they’ve had almost 42-million boxes exported.

FRYHOVER: When you look at the exports about half of all of our exports out of the State of Washington are Red Delicious and most of those are size 100 and smaller so to have a more medium profile on Red Delicious, which still remains our number one variety, is a real benefit to the growers in the long term. it gives us more opportunity both domestically and internationally on the medium sizes.

But the question remains as to what this years crop may look like.

FRYHOVER: We are a cyclic industry. When we have large crops as we did last year the following year typically does come back smaller in volume. We do have a lot more bearing surface than we’ve had in years past and that’s something that’s very difficult to predict as far as total volume goes. The industry in general is anticipating a smaller crop for 2015 somewhere probably in the 125 to 130 million fresh box range.

That’s today’s Fruit Grower Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network of the West.