Cherry Drier

 Imagine being in a rural setting in beautiful Idaho. For example, driving along out in the orchard and wine country, let’s say the Sunnyslope, Marsing area. Anyway, as you’re toddling your way along a quiet country road you look up and you see a helicopter, a gyro, a whirlybird just hovering on top of the trees in an orchard. Thoughts come to mind like “What in the world is going on?...maybe, “Is there an escaped convict looking to get away with an armful of apples?” or, God Forbid, “Have we resorted to conducting military operations over a vineyard in preparation for an invasion of France!”

The answer is none of the above. What you’re looking at is cherry drying. Yup! After all the rain, cherries have to be dried out. Here’s Mike Williamson, COO of Williamson Orchards. “We’ll hire the helicopters to come out when there’s a severe rain and they’re close to ripening and there’s enough sugar in the cherries to cause osmosis which pulls the water into the cherry which makes the volume inside greater than the skin can hold and they just split wide open. It wa coming fast enough that we needed some help from somebody with a lot more wind so we used the helicopters and they come out and they dry them out for the most part.