More on NW Cherries

Over the weekend there were a few thunderstorms that rolled through the northwest but nothing really to write home about. The 2014 cherry season has been off to a good start but as time goes by producers will of course be keeping a closer eye on Mother Nature. NW Cherries BJ Thurlby says there are some other things to consider this season.

THURLBY: The big challenge for us every year, the big hill is the back end through the middle of July through the week or two of August. We're certainly out there telling everybody, yes, we want to promote cherries in June and the Fourth of July is going to be a home run for you but the opportunity also lies heavily to the middle of July and beyond.

The Independence holiday is a major milestone for cherry marketing since Thurlby says that is probably the largest single cherry purchasing date in the year. And while this probably won't be a record breaking year, Thurlby is very excited.

THURLBY: Right now it just looks like a great opportunity. How big the crop is up here, if we look at the historical data it should be right around 20 or 21 million boxes. You know we are always going to process about 30% of the crop. That could work out in that range very easily. In 2012 we shipped 23 1/2 million boxes so the reality is this crop could be somewhere in that range, it could be a little bit lighter.

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