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Harvest could hardly be better Mail Tribune / Bob Pennell Rigoberto Mejia of Mexico City levels off a box of pears as this year�s harvest enters its third week. Thanks to sunny, dry weather and pest control, the fruit this year is "some of the cleanest" growers have seen. The harvest will continue well into October. By Vicki Guarino Just the right amount of sunny, dry weather, coupled with some better ways of controlling orchard pests, are adding up to a nearly ideal pear harvest. "It is one of the nicest crops we�ve ever seen out of Medford," Southern Oregon Sales General Manager Scott Martinez said Tuesday. Southern Oregon Sales is a grower cooperative that processes about 40 percent of the valley�s commercial pear harvest, or 19,000 to 20,000 tons annually. "This is some of the cleanest fruit we�ve seen," agreed Phil VanBuskirk, local Oregon State University Extension Service agent. "The fruit could be bigger, but that�s always the case.�� Harvest began right on time about two weeks ago with the ripening of the earliest of the summer pear varieties, Star Crimson. Harvesting is picking up this week with the main summer variety, Bartlett. "The fruit is exceptional,�� Martinez said. Despite the quality, the size of the harvest overall is expected to be down from last year. Fruit seems to be somewhat smaller this year and more sparse on the trees. VanBuskirk said he wished he knew exactly why the crop looks so good, but he suspects that the pests that blemish fruit were held in check by weather and newer growing techniques. Dry weather came earlier in the spring, limiting the growth of fungus on fruit. And pests seem to have been controlled by changes in pesticide use. So-called "soft" pesticides � nonsynthetic preparations � were used more widely this year than ever before and to better effect, VanBuskirk said. Particularly effective have been a light coating of clay that makes trees unpalatable or downright deadly to bugs and chemicals that interfere with insects� breeding. The compounds have been used in limited areas for the past few years. They don�t work on every orchard pest or in every location, said VanBuskirk, but in many places the compounds are an improvement. The new alternatives have resulted in a significant decline in the use of synthetic compounds, which can be more hazardous to farm crews and the environment. VanBuskirk said that over the last five years, there has been a 66 percent reduction in the use of synthetics in the county�s pear orchards. The pear harvest, around 2 million boxes, is expected to continue well into October. The valley�s biggest pear crop is the late season, winter pears. The single biggest variety is Bosc, said VanBuskirk. Summer pears being harvested now ripen on the trees; winter varieties require about a month in cold storage to ripen, he said. Although the outlook for pears is optimistic, the outlook for the labor to bring in the crop is uncertain. Labor is sufficient now, said VanBuskirk, "but there�s not a lot of need just yet.�� In the past several years, numbers of migrant workers necessary to bring in the winter pear crop has been declining. Last year, some winter pears were late coming off the trees because of the labor shortage. VanBuskirk said local growers have been offering bonuses to workers who stay through the entire harvest season to draw them to the valley. Obituaries | Sports | Business | Classifieds | Tempo | Prime Times | So Oregon Sites | Outdoor Journal | Subscribe | Contact | Movies | Advertise | Real Estate Showcase | Archive | Editorials | Letters to the editor | Religion | Wake-up Call | NIE | Cyber Chef | Job Network | So Oregon Weather | WSJ Northwest | Forums | AP Wire | AP Money | F.A.Q. | Awards Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. The Community Newspaper Subsidiary of Dow Jones & Co, Inc Copyright �The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA