Frost in Washington State has seen the apple season shortened and overall volumes will be down by nine per cent on last season, according to officials.
A severe four-day frost hit the area as the picking period drew to a close, and only a small proportion of late varieties have been affected, according to growers. Initial reports that as much as 25 per cent of the crop has been affected proved wide of the mark.
Tony Durado, from exporter Andrus & Roberts, said his company had escaped the worst of the weather. “We had three to four days of very cold weather. [Temperatures] went into the teens at night [around -10°C] and 40-45°F during the day.
“We had most of our crop picked so we didn’t lose much of anything, maybe 100 bins of fruit. We had to scramble to make sure we got as much picked as we could,” he said.
Rebecca Baerveldt, from the Washington Apple Commission, said UK supply would not likely be affected by the freeze. “Our crop is going to be down this year but I have not heard that it will affect shipments to the UK,” she said. “[The frost happened] at the end of October/beginning of November - which is really the end of our harvest season, but the major issue will be that we will have a shorter crop this season.”
According to the commission, the crop is nine per cent down on last season to 92.3 million bushel boxes overall for 2006-07.
“[The frost] did affect the crop, but what we are finding is there was a lot of fruit already off the trees,” Baerveldt added. “The early varieties, like Red Delicious and Gala, are all fine and it looks like Washington Pink is going to be coming in at 1.1m boxes. So we should have a good supply of fruit for the UK given the overall crop size this year, which will keep upward pressure on prices.”
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