PEAR TREATMENT PT1

I'm Bob Larson with today's Fruit Grower Report. Using Ethylene gas to kick-start the natural ripening process in pears is nothing new to the industry, but industry insiders would like to see the practice more widely used ...

KEVIN MOFFITT 3B=23 sec ... "Consumers don't want to wait. They don't want to wait for this fruit to ripen. You can see it with bananas. If you walk into a supermarket and there's a huge display of bananas, if the fruits not too yellow, but in a good yellowish state, that's when the fruits going to sell. People aren't going to want to buy those really grass-green bananas because it's going to take them 5 days, 6 days to ripen. People want that fruit within 1 to 3 days. And that's the same with pears."

Pear Bureau Northwest CEO Kevin Moffitt says Ethylene treatments are commonly used on other fruits as well ...

KEVIN MOFFITT 1B=20 sec ... "Most, probably the retail side of the business would be familiar with the ripening using Ethylene treatment for bananas. So the hormone that is in the fruit itself, but there's and Ethylene treatment that's used on bananas, avacados and pears that will help the fruit ripen more consistently when it's introduced in a controlled ripening room."

Moffitt says bottom-line, it will allow us to enjoy the pears sooner ...

KEVIN MOFFITT 3AA=12 sec ... "Without the Ethylene, sometimes it can take up to a week for that Anjou to soften up and become a sweet and juicy treat. Whereas, conditioned fruit might take anywhere from just 1 to 4 days, 1 to 3 days."

Only 35 to 40 percent of green Anjou pears are treated with Ethylene before reaching store shelves, and even less with other varieties.