Cherry Harvest Update

Cherry Harvest Update. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

The start of the cherry season had a lot of growers on the edge of their seats like a good thriller movie and according to BJ Thurlby, President of NW Cherries, while there were some losses...it could have been a whole lot worse.

THURLBY: We think we lost probably 5 to 10% of the front end of this crop due to the rain, the wind. It was definitely a challenge. When you look at the first 25 days of this harvest growers have not again been very lucky. It’s just been a challenge from day one. We’ve had that cool weather that kicked in right there at the end of May really kind of slowed the crop down a little bit. Overall it’s kept the districts spread out and I think that’s a positive for the grower.

The holy grail of the cherry industry is the 4th of July holiday.

THURLBY: The fourth of July fell on Wednesday this year which is, in my opinion, that’s always kind of a hit and miss deal and the feel is that without the couple days of long week to sell through that the sell through over the 4th was just “okay.”

There were hopes that this past weekend would see a lot of cherry sales as people tried to squeeze in some last minute picnics and of course retailers were responding with special prices on different cherry varieties. And then again there is the issue of labor.

THURLBY: I don’t think labor has been perfect but at the same time because of the cool weather and we’ve had the separation in districts we’ve been getting the fruit off without too much delay. And this nice weather we’ve had really has people going hard. I was talking to a grower and he said it was just exciting to see these cherries have come along so quickly and sized up so nicely that it was fun to see the pickers in the orchard just going for it.

That’s today’s Fruit Grower Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.