Cherry Update

Cherry Update

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

No doubt about it, spring came early this year and it has a lot of tree fruit coming on earlier than most people remember. BJ Thurlby with NW Cherries gives us an update.

THURLBY: This cherry crop, like all the previous 50 cherry crops is coming off in a different fashion than we’ve seen before and in this year, 2015, it appears that we’re running anywhere from seven to eight to nine days ahead in terms of degree day units and that pretty much includes Oregon, Tri-Cities, Yakima Valley, Natchez Valley, Lower Wenatchee, the Columbia Basin.

He says that some of the higher elevation, late producing varieties seem to be running just about on time.

THURLBY: If things stay in place and again, we have another 40 days to go before harvester so, we will be starting in that last to second to last week of May which we haven’t seen before so this is going to be a potentially, depending on what kind of weather we get in May, an early start for us.

There has been some damage done.

THURLBY: It looks like we’re going to have a fairly normal sized crop. Now is it going to be as big as last years 23-million box crop? We don’t think so. And we know that Oregon has had some damage this winter. We know that some of our growers have sustained some damage from cold and we’ve had a few cold nights in the last two or three weeks that have affected it. We’re still thinking we have a full crop though. Does that mean 20-million boxes, does that mean 18-million boxes but at least we think we’ve got something to offer the consumers this year.

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

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