More on Rain and Cherries

More On Cherries & Rain. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

Gip Redman with the Oregon Cherry Growers like a lot of cherry growers has been keeping one eye on the sky and the other on cherry orchards around the region as rains continued through the region over the last couple of days.

REDMAN: It didn’t help but I don’t know that it hurt. What I saw was definitely some damage on two primary varieties here in the Dalles and that’s the Chelan’s and Tieton. Primarily here in the Dalles. I saw the same kind of damage up in the Yakima Valley before I left. We really don’t have many Santina’s down here bearing much. It’s kind of a new one that’s been put in. But those two have some cracks.

He says the damage is varied from questionable harvest on one small orchard to not very much damage at all at some of the later ripening areas.

REDMAN: The market should be fairly strong because of the pollination issues and now some rain cracking issues. I’m sure there’s going to be a need for cherries. What that means is the packing lines will have a little more time to sort through rougher fruit and gives the opportunity for the grower to salvage something out of the deal.

Yes, no doubt there will be a market for NW cherries although prices may fluctuate a bit. The big thing now is to hopefully hold off on any more rain as the cherries continue to ripen. We may even see a few cherries harvested by the end of next week according to Redman.

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