Bad Year for Idaho Cherries
A few weeks ago we reported on a method of drying cherries by hovering a helicopter over the orchard in order to prevent water from entering through the skin through osmosis and splitting them. Well not everyone could afford that technology and it’s caused big problems for small cherry growers. Here’s Allen Dimmick, owner of Cherrystone Orchard in Emmett: “The cherry business in the State of Idaho these days is a little bit bleak. We have a very big, heavy crop, the problem with it is, between the rains and the polinization we got earlier, we have small cherries, damaged cherries, most of us who are packing for the wholesale/retail trade, are running about a 40% cull rate. Your picker picks the whole tree and you have to pay them by the lug. We’re getting hammered with Washington cherries. Washington had a very big, high quality crop and we’ve got Washington cherries coming into some of the big chain stores at prices that none of us local small growers could meet.”
