Governor 'tracking' area's fruit-crop damage

EASTERN WASHINGTON - State representatives are going to be surveying for weather-created damages to area crops today.

State Department of Agriculture Director Valoria Loveland and advisors from Gov. Chris Gregoire's office are touring affected areas this week.

State Department of Agriculture Communications Director Jason Kelly said Loveland does not have an itinerary for her tour and no media availability was planned.

"The director is going to go down and drive through the region," he explained. "When she sees damage, she's going to pull in and talk to some farmers."

They will bring Gregoire an assessment and recommendations, which may include a request for an emergency proclamation to trigger the availability of low-interest loans to growers who

suffered crop losses.

"I am closely tracking weather-caused fruit-crop damage in Eastern Washington to learn the extent of the damage and actions I can take to help," Gov. Chris Gregoire stated. "Right now, the damage does not appear widespread but may be significant in isolated areas. Growers are telling us they need a few days of warmer weather before they will know the real extent of the damage."

"Certainly, this is the craziest spring we've ever had as far as growing conditions go," said B.J. Thurlby, president of the Washington State Tree Fruit Commission. "We're late, which is a challenge because the Fourth of July is critical to our success, and we're going to have to work around that this year."

Most growers are reporting recent warmer weather has been great, Thurlby said, but quite a few more warm days are necessary to get cell division going in cherries.

"As for the cold weather, we had 20 degrees in a lot of areas around the Northwest during bloom, so it's just assumed we've lost some fruit. The commission is obviously aware we have some growers out there who will say, 'Boy, I've lost everything,'" Thurlby said. "Then we have a lot of growers that will say, 'I've got three-fourths of a crop.'"

In recent years, the industry has raised crops in the 15 million box range, he added.

"We're not going to be there this year as an industry," Thurlby said. "But in today's world with all the new acreage coming in and a broader and longer manifest of varieties available, a lot of trees weren't even close to being in bloom yet. So those trees are probably in pretty good shape."

The commission knows there's more fruit than five or six years ago, Thurlby added, but there won't be as much as the last couple of years.

"There's definitely been some hits in that Othello area and in Moses Lake, but there's not any place in the Northwest, I don't think, that was not susceptible to some of this freeze," Thurlby said. "The question is, will these growers have enough fruit to even go in and harvest. You can't get labor if you don't have at least a harvestable crop and I think for the most part, most of my growers have that."

While many things have to go right during the next month, Thurlby estimated there would be between 10 million and 13 million boxes of fruit.

"Which would make it one of the top five largest crops of all -time out of the Northwest," he noted.

Thurlby didn't expect to see much impact to consumers. While there won't be as many cherries, warm weather over the next month may bring larger, firmer fruit and subsequent increased demand.

"I just think in agriculture in general, our costs have gone up significantly, and we can just expect there's going to be a 10 cents a pound difference," he said. "It's not just on cherries - it's the same thing on strawberries, the same thing on grapes. That's just the challenge of an economy where inflation seems to hit us every year."

Thurlby said the industry will be able to get a good feel for the crop in several weeks, when it can observe what's hanging on the trees.

"There's a lot of things that have to go right," he said. "Over the years, a lot of the growers that have been around always use this little clich/. They say, 'A short crop gets shorter.' That's kind of where we are this year. The cherry business is a gambler's business, is a risky business. There's going to be people out there who don't have a crop and that's incredibly unfortunate. But there's a lot of people that do, and we want to keep that in front of the consumers, so we don't lose them as far as thinking there's no cherry crop this year."