Blossoming Spring Time

Blossoming Spring Time. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. Last year's fruit harvest was a good one and it seemed that there were blossoms everywhere. Tim Smith, WSU Extension Agent says it's a bit different this year. SMITH: Well there was some concern about the fruit orchards..the cherry orchards that didn't get picked last year. Some people have reported that the blossoms on those came out fewer and maybe a little weaker on some trees but most of the trees came back with a fairly good blossom crop. The rest of the fruit industry is looking pretty good as well. SMITH: Well the pear orchards look like they're going to bloom pretty well. They're in the process right now, lower elevations are past full bloom and higher elevations are just getting into it and there's a pretty good blossom crop. A long time ago we figured out that you had to have blooms before you had fruit. Ok...yes that was joke but there are some people that haven't connected the two. Smith says that it looks like it will be a good crop at least from the set. SMITH: Apples are just getting into blooming now and looks like a fairly good crop of blossoms, a few trees here and there that are not blooming very much. The general feeling is we've got a good crop of blossoms which almost invariably leads to a good crop. Now how big that crop is we can argue about but when the trees aren't blooming very heavily we know they're not going to yield very well. Smith says this should be a good year but then we are a long way from the last chapter and there are plenty of pages to be written between now and then. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.