Ag Weather Impacts

Ag Weather Impacts

Fruit growing and marketing has a big economic impact in the Columbia River Gorge. Yesterday, I talked with Dr. Ashley Thompson the new OSU Extension Horticulturalist covering Wasco and Hood River Counties. Ashley is a Pennsylvania native and comes to the Gorge by way of Virginia Tech and University of Nebraska at Lincoln. I asked Ashley about some of the immediate concerns Gorge fruit growers have for this year's crop.

Dr. Thompson: We're gonna be monitoring for codling moth, for western cherry fruit fly, probably monitoring for pear scab and fire blight.

Ashley mentioned that some of the pears in pollination or yet to bloom may still be at risk for fire blight if conditions are right.

Dr. Thompson: Places in the upper valley of Hood River, they might have some fire blight risk in the near future, especially with flowering, because with fire blight if it's warm and moist you can definitely have risk for fire blight.

The recent cool weather has delayed the first flight of pests.

Dr. Thompson: Right now in the Gorge, we're waiting for some of these bio-fixes for some of these insect pests like codling moth. The weather been a little bit cool, so we haven't seen them flying.

A pre-harvest cherry tour is scheduled for June 5 and they'll likely discuss new early cherry varieties.

Dr. Thompson: We've got some people that have bred some really novel early cherry varieties. They are earlier than Chelan by about 5 days.

Thanks to OSU Horticulturalist Dr. Ashley Thompson for giving us an update on the fruit crops in the Columbia River Gorge.

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