Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/34759
management, fruit quality, pest manage- ment, and even cardiovascular health benefits of peaches, nectarines, and plums. The Plum Board is supporting five research projects this year for a total of $37,000, compared with the 15 projects that would have been funded with peach and nectarine assessments. No crop or packout data Other casualties include a halt to a vast collection of industry data, ranging from “The plum program has been scaled way back to run only the international work and support a handful of research projects.” —Gary Van Sickle annual crop estimates to variety and district shipments and packout data to annual tree sales, and planting and tree removal trends. “Some industry members are looking around wondering where crop estimation information will come from,” said Kevin Day, University of California Cooperative Extension farm advisor for stone fruits. Day, who is based in Tulare County, said that he had some call him earlier in the season for crop information. While Day spends most of his time in the field visiting orchards, he admits that he’s the wrong guy to make crop estimates. “When I do orchard visits, it’s usually in regards to a problem or troubleshooting,” he said, adding that making an estimate from atypical orchards would give a false perspective of what’s really out there in terms of crop load. Day said that peach and nectarine growers also lost a key industry spokesperson who often handled con- tentious media issues. Few growers or shippers want to be in the national media spotlight when it comes to answering questions about issues like pesticide residues. Voluntary inspections Establishing maturity, grade, size, and pack standards and facilitating third- party federal inspections by USDA at shipping point for peaches, plums, and nectarines were important duties of the marketing orders until about five years ago, Van Sickle said. At that time, the industry moved away from mandatory inspections because packers felt that the retailer standards they were meeting were higher than the federal grade and maturity standards. He said that packers believed that in-house www.goodfruit.com GOOD FRUIT GROWER JULY 2011 15 grading would better meet the grade and quality standards being required by the retailers. “When the inspection program shifted to be voluntary, it made the federal inspections of little value,” Van Sickle said. Van Sickle is following a plan specified by USDA in closing the marketing orders, a process that may take ten months. •