There will be about 7 millions fewer boxes of Washington state apples shipped from the Yakima and Wenatchee valleys this season, but it still should end up next August being the second largest crop of all time.
Last year’s record apple loadings hit 128.2 million fresh boxes, and is competing with larger New York and Michigan shipments, after devasting freezes hit those states in 2012.
As of December 1, 28 million boxes had been shipped compared to 31.5 million at the same time last year and 25.3 million two years ago. Loadings are still clipping along at 2.7 million boxes per week and should remain at that level into spring, possibly peaking around 3 million per week in January.
The crop’s current standing at 113.3 million boxes is up .1 percent from the November 1 storage report, down 5.5 percent from the August 1 forecast of 119.8 million boxes and pff 11.7 percent from the record 128.2-million-box 2012 crop.
Exports are down 10 percent from a year ago at 8.4 million boxes as of December 1 compared with 9.4 million at the same time in 2012 and 7.8 million in 2011.
Mexico and Canada are Washington’s largest apple export markets.
Mexico normally takes 10 million to 11 million boxes annually but hit 13.6 million last year. Canada averages 5 million to 6 million and last year took 6.35 million boxes.
Thus far this season, Canada is at 1.2 million boxes and Mexico is just getting started at 1 million
Washington state apples – grossing about $6700 to Orlando.