Prices fairly stable with large crops Market Watch


By Judie Steeves


Good weather helps boost cherry harvest, big fruit for apple growers.


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eturns to growers from this past season’s crops should be similar to last year, because although prices for some commodities may be slightly down, the crop size is up.


For instance, the B.C. Tree Fruit Co-op dealt with a huge cherry crop this year, nearly double the size of the previous year, which was a small crop due to weather damage, reports Hank Markgraf, field operations manager for the co-op.


Nearly nine million pounds of the sweet little red fruits went through new and fairly-new sorting lines around the valley for the co-op, while even more went through packing lines at a variety of independent shippers throughout the Okanagan and Similkameen Valleys and Creston.


Quality, says Markgraf, was good, with no major insect or disease problems, and very co-operative weather patterns throughout the season.


The one exception was heat in August, which caused rapid maturing, requiring packers to switch markets day-by-day, depending on the fruit that was available.


It was the first year using the new optical sizing equipment on the export line at the co-op’s Kelowna packinghouse, and Markgraf was pleased with how everything went, but says next year will be even better, as tweaking and learning continued throughout this season. It was the second year of exporting cherries to the vast China markets and quality was much improved over last year as growers and shippers had a better idea of the requirements of that market.


While independent shippers have only a few growers to deal with, and sometimes only one, the co-op had 70 this year, so more and more of the paperwork and protocol required to enter the Chinese market will be


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computerized before another season arrives, promises Markgraf. Prices, reports Chris Pollock, the co-op’s marketing manager, were a bit lower than the previous year, but only because there were lots of cherries on the market, where last year a short crop resulted from a variety of weather issues. Because there are still young blocks of new cherry plantings coming on-stream, the forecast is for a larger crop next year. However, with new markets such as China opening to Canadian cherries, there’s also a demand for more fruit. “And, the market in China really wants our Pacific Northwest cherries,” adds Pollock. In preparation for the coming season, Markgraf advises growers to make the big pruning cuts now, in winter, to encourage new growth for the coming year and larger cherries, which always pay better.


Big fruit is what growers brought in to the co-op during apple season this year, he says, and the crop itself was about 4.2 million (42-pound) cartons, compared to 2.8 million cartons of fresh market fruit last year.


However, Washington State growers took off a record 155 million cartons of apples this year, so prices are a challenge in such a huge crop year, admit both Pollock and Markgraf.


Because of the large quantities, prices dropped a bit, despite excellent quality, but Pollock said they are trying to get them to inch back up over the coming months. Bins were a big issue with such a large crop here, recalls Markgraf. From a few cool nights in August and September that helped add colourful cheeks to the different varieties of apples, to almost no hail or frost to create delays during ripening and harvest, the weather was perfect his year, says Markgraf. With amalgamation of the various co-ops in the valley, storage space for all the fruit has not been a problem, he noted.


“Generally, growers grew the crop well this year, and great weather helped all along through the growing


British Columbia FRUIT GROWER • Winter 2014-15 season,” he said.


He’s forecasting a smaller crop next year overall, since apples have a tendency to be biennial.


Pears were also very healthy this year, with a similar quantity to two years ago when hail had less of an affect on the crop. The co-op packed about 6,500 bins of fruit. Soft fruit such as peaches also came in at higher-than-forecast quantities and excellent quality. The estimate was for a crop of three million pounds of peaches, but four actually came in, compared to 2.5 million pounds last year.


The prune plum crop was also up, as were nectarines and prices for all those fruits were comparable to the previous year.


With most of the apple crop now marketed in Western Canada, it’s particularly important that residents continue to support local growers when they purchase tree fruits in the store, noted Pollock.


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