Stemilt Apples Pt 2

From the Ag Information Network, I’m Bob Larson with today’s Fruit Grower Report. The apples are coming off the trees in Washington state and growers are saying, so far so good!

Brianna Shales, Marketing Director for Stemilt Gowers, says as of August 1st the estimate was for 134-million boxes, but that could change …

SHALES … “We’ll know more about what the actual crop size is around December 1st once harvest is complete, and all of the fruit is in either storage or in warehouses. But that’s a very strong estimate for the state.”

But some of the early varieties are coming in now …

SHALES … “Yep, you’re right. Gala harvest is wrapped, definitely, here at Stemilt and probably for many in the industry. That’s one of the first ones to harvest and some of the earlier strains of Honeycrisps and Fujis would be done and there working more on standard strains of those.”

And after that, Shales says …

SHALES … “Then we’ll be getting into Cosmic Crisp harvest, Red Delicious and some of the other, kind of, club varietals as we round into October. And then by the end of the month we’ll be harvesting the last variety which is Pink Lady.”

Some varieties, Shales says are in stores now …

SHALES … “You know, at Stemilt, we’ve been shipping two of our club apples already, Rave and Sweet Tango. But the whole manifest really becomes available in that November and December time frame.”

To find out more about what’s going on at Stemilt, check out their website … www.stemilt.com