By
Wanda Heuser Gale
International Plant Management
Growers, being
the optimists they have to be, tend to ignore messages of doom and
gloom. The nursery industry has been saying for two years or more
that the supply of fruit trees is short and going to get shorter.
Last week one of our favorite customers called and was quite upset
to find there were very few of the trees he needed. We told him several
times in the past that trees were short, but he thought, “It’s
just a sales pitch.”
But it’s not a sales pitch, it’s the truth. Trees are
in short supply for 2005 and will be even shorter for 2006. Growers
who haven’t planned at least a year or more ahead will be hard
pressed to find trees.
It takes a nursery several years to plant and grow a tree. What we
sell as a one-year tree has actually been in the ground for two years.
The rootstock was already a year old when the nursery planted it.
This means that trees sold in the spring of 2005 were grown in the
nursery field in 2004 and budded in 2003. The rootstocks themselves
were grown by the rootstock nursery in 2002 and were ordered by the
tree nursery one to two years in advance.
Why are trees so short now? How is this year any different from all
the other years? There isn’t one single factor. Like most things,
it takes a combination of small things to add up to one huge shortage.
First, the fruit industry, especially apples, has been in a huge slump
for several years. In response to this, nurseries cut back on their
rootstock buying and tree production. In response to that, rootstock
producers cut back on their production of rootstocks. This slump was
so large that many rootstock producers even pushed out stool beds.
Then, the apple market slowly got better and growers started planting
trees again. In the Northwest, the market got quite a bit better,
and they started planting quite a lot of trees.
Coupled with the better apple market, the monumental decline in demand
for Red Delicious meant that huge acreages of Reds were pushed out
and replanted with other varieties. This went hand in hand with the
introduction of several new selections of desirable varieties. A third
generation of Gala and Fuji led to replanting of those varieties.
Some brand new varieties such as Cameo, Pink Lady and other new “club”
varieties also gave growers other reasons to replant. Honeycrisp is
a hot commodity almost everywhere and is still giving growers a profitable
return.
All these factors led to a greatly increased demand for trees, just
as the nurseries were harvesting a short crop in response to the slump.
Remember the four- to-five-year delay? As nurseries expanded production
for 2005 and 2006, they ran into the next problem. There are no rootstocks
to expand with. Rootstock suppliers have cut back.
Here’s the bottom line: Apples, Montmorency cherries and dwarf
cherries are very, very tight for 2005 and 2006. The biggest shortages
are the newest cultivars on all M9 clones. Trees on larger stocks
are a little more available. Peaches are in better supply.
By 2007 and 2008, the whole situation should begin to even itself
out. But that’s a long time to go without planting. Growers
need to plan two to three years in advance and get orders in now.
If possible, get it in as a budding contract. This is a great way
to guarantee availability and it saves quite a bit of money. Believe
your tree suppliers when they tell you trees are short. It’s
not a sales pitch; it’s the truth.
