Washington's apple and pear growers have voted to donate $27 million over the next eight years to support tree fruit research at WSU.
The growers voted to tax themselves $1 per ton of fruit and dedicate the money to research, they said at WSU’s research center in Prosser on Tuesday morning. Growers of cherries and stone fruit also voted, but they declined to approve the special assessment.
“We grow the best quality tree fruit in the world, but we need to be ready to respond to a changing marketplace, unknown pests and diseases and other uncertainties we can’t anticipate,” said Dan Newhouse, director of the state Department of Agriculture.
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