Published 10:51 am Friday, January 12, 2024
Washington’s apple harvest for 2023-24 is its second largest ever, said Tim Kovis, director of communications for the Washington State Tree Fruit Association.
The crop hit 139.5 million 40-pound equivalent boxes for the fresh market, up 34% over the harvest for 2022-23.
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“Fortunately this year, we’ve had relatively ideal growing conditions for the fruit,” Kovis said.
Quality and storability looked sensational, but despite the stellar harvest, the industry has worries, he added.
“There’s some cautious optimism but still a lot of concern with how things will play out for the rest of the year,” Kovis said.
Trade obstacles in foreign markets such as China are causing anxiety, though India dropped retaliatory tariffs and has returned as a major export customer.
“We’re seeing good domestic consumption, which is helpful, but some feel that prices have been stagnant as costs of production have grown due to inflation and labor costs,” he added.
On top of that, Washington’s threshold for overtime pay dropped to 40 hours per week as of Jan. 1.
“There’s a lot of concern that something has to give or growers are going to have to make tough decisions,” Kovis said.
The record for Washington’s apple harvest is nearly 142 million boxes, set in 2014-15.
The 2022-23 crop of 104 million boxes was the state’s smallest crop since 2009-10, when the harvest was 102 million boxes.
“Last year’s crop was due to some weather events in the spring that caused pollination issues, where we had snow the week before Easter with rain and cold weather,” Kovis said.
Trees were in bloom and needed pollination, but the bees weren’t flying because of the poor conditions.
The recent chilly and snowy weather hitting Washington will cause some frustration with pruning for growers, but it wasn’t a major problem, Kovis said.
“We needed the weather to get cold with pest management and to get the trees to go dormant,” he added.
