With today’s Fruit Grower Report, I’m Bob Larson. The biggest of honors for the Northwest Pear Industry is coming to Wenatchee in June …

KEVIN MOFFITT … “We’re going to be hosting the first Interpera Conference to be held in the U.S., first time in the U.S. I mean. It’s the tenth time that they’ve held this Congress. It’s been most recently in South Africa, and prior to that in Italy, and it’s been in Belgium, a lot of the large pear-producing countries around the world. So, we’re pretty pleased to bring it the U.S. and up to Wenatchee which is our premier growing district in terms of volumes and such in the U.S. So, it’s a great opportunity and we’re really looking forward to it.”

Pear Bureau Northwest president Kevin Moffitt says it will be a very forward-looking Congress that looks at new pear variety development and root stocks and other topical issues …

KEVIN MOFFITT … “The pear industry is behind the apple industry in terms of new variety development and things like high-density plantings because we don’t have the root stocks available that have opened up in the apple side and there isn’t as much research going into new variety development on the pear side. So, having a very pear-centric conference like this that really addresses these issues, just for pears, this is 100% pear, is going to be pretty exciting.”

Moffitt expects a good turnout with pear experts from around the world on hand to speak at the two day event June 15-16.

Listen tomorrow for more on the Interpera Congress.