05/08/06 No Apple Coin & Cherry Crop

No apple coin and cherry crop. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. The people have spoken and there will not be an apple coin design for Washington State. Gov. Christine Gregoire unveiled an oversized version of the design - a salmon leaping in front of a conifer-trimmed Mount Rainier. The design garnered the majority of the votes in a recent online poll that saw computer hackers break into the system. After closing the loopholes and restarting the polling, the new design narrowly beat out a similar design that also incorporated apples hanging from a branch. Apple industry leaders had hoped this would be the design chosen. The new quarter still awaits a largely routine approval from the U.S. Mint before it is created. The coins are expected to be in circulation in 2007, the 42nd in a series commemorating the states. The latest indicators are that this year's cherry crop could beat out last year's record harvest. The harvest is expected to include a number of new varieties that ripen later in the summer. It`s all good news after a year in which growers couldn`t meet demand. California and the Pacific Northwest produce the bulk of the nation`s sweet cherries. Growers in Washington, Idaho, Oregon and Utah harvested a record 117,000 tons of fresh cherries last year. The early estimate for the 2006 four-state fresh crop ranges between 110,000 and 130,000 tons, with much of the harvest in Washington. If the weather stays warm, with no extended heavy rain, growers see potential for the harvest to come in at the higher end of that range. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.