In the Northwest, sweet onion shipments get underway within a few weeks. Meanwhile, plenty of Washington apples remain in storage for shipping.
Walla Walla Sweet onions from Washington state will begin shipments in mid-June and running into August. Growing conditions have been good this spring and the onions are sizing up well. The crop is trending heavily to jumbos and colossal.
Apple Shipments
However, the big mover remains with Washington state apple shipments, even though we are entering the last leg of the season before new crops start coming on in August. About 45 million bushels of U.S.-grown fresh market apples had yet to be shipped as of May 1, 28% more than last year at the same time.
The May total also was 38% higher than the five-year average, according to the May Market News report from the Vienna, Va.-based U.S. Apple Association.
Washington accounted for 40.9 million bushels of apples still in storage on May 1. New York had 1.45 million bushels, Michigan 1.24 million bushels and Pennsylvania 555,000 bushels.
Holdings of almost all major varieties were up from last year. Red delicious holdings increased from 13.6 million to 18 million bushels; galas from 4.2 million to 6.9 million bushels; golden delicious from 4.2 million to 5 million bushels; fuji from 3.3 million to 4.3 million bushels; Pink Lady from 913,000 to 1.4 million bushels; and Honeycrisp from 71,000 to 306,000 bushels.
Granny smith holdings fell slightly, from 5.41 million to 5.4 million bushels.
Yakima Valley apples and pears – grossing about $4500 to Chicago.