Welcome to the “Postharvest Export” website. Contents found on this website will be transitioning over to the WSU Tree Fruit website.

Historical Information

The original website was built in 2003 as part of USDA FAS project aimed at helping the industry better identify the defects and damage found when sampling cull fruit. Over the years more diverse information was added for lack of a better place to present it. The site became the primary source of information about key apple export market requirements, such as the Taiwan Systems Approach Work Plan. The site you are on now was later created to house the most important information from the older site. Much of this content will be moved to the WSU Tree Fruit website under the Postharvest section. This site will no longer be updated as it is transitioned over to the Tree Fruit site.

Training Events

There are several annual training opportunities for tree fruit field and packing house technicians on how to evaluate fruit for export shipments. The most notable events include the annual stone fruit cutter training in May and the Taiwan field/bin sample and cull cutter training offered in August. For full descriptions of these and other events please visit the Training Events page. Upcoming training opportunities, if any, will be listed to the right or appear on the Training Calendar.

Training is now coordinated by Joshua Milnes at WSDA in Yakima. Any packinghouse cutter or field sampling technician training questions can be addressed to him directly at jmilnes@arg.wa.gov or at 509-220-1134.

Postharvest News

• New Postharvest ITT Extension Hire WSU has hired Chris Hedges for the Postharvest Tree Fruit ITT Extension position. Chris comes with industry background in fruit postharvest. He will be under the supervision of Carolina Torres, WSU Endowed Chair of Tree Fruit Postharvest and based in Wenatchee at the Tree Fruit Research and Extension Center.
• New Export Training Coordinator After 15+ years of acting as the export training coordinator for stone fruit exports to Mexico and B.C., Canada, and for apple exports to Taiwan and China, Wendy Jones of WSU-TFREC has handed the task over to Joshua Milnes of WSDA – Plant Protection Division. Joshua is a recent hire by WSDA and recently received […]
• New Defect ID Tools Coming Soon! Proper identification of damage, defects, diseases, and other disorders is the first step in solving the issue and producing quality fruit. Many issues can be difficult to identify because they look similar but may have completely different causes. To help out, we are developing tools to help you identify the problems. The first set of tools is […]
• Carolina Torres Carolina Torres has joined WSU as the new Endowered Chair of Tree Fruit Postharvest Systems. She is based in Wenatchee at the Tree Fruit Research and Extension Center but will be providing service to all of Washington as well as collaborating with others throughout the PNW region.