05/08/07 Cherry Season Shaping Up

Cherry Season Shaping Up. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. It may be still a bit early to tell but if the cherry tree in my front yard is any indication, this might be another great year for cherries. Don't take my word for it. THURLBY: You know we think in the later districts we've got a good looking crop on the trees but because of the physiology of the cherry tree and the challenges of Mother Nature put of with the weather patterns, it's still a little early for us to be hanging our hat on a huge crop but we do think we're going to have a good crop. That's B.J. Thurlby, President of NW Cherry Growers. Do the words "Cautiously Optimistic" come to mind? THURLBY: We had a meeting last week of growers from around the four states; Washington, Oregon, Utah and Idaho and now Montana which is going to become part of a 5-state group, and overall I think everyone thinks we've got a pretty decent crop. I just think it's going to be a little lighter on the front end. By that Thurlby means through June with the cold weather we had, things will take a bit longer to develop but he anticipates things picking up. THURLBY: You know at the end of the day if we get some great weather in here and some good growing conditions like we had this weekend over the next 2-3 weeks, we're going to be looking at a nice crop of cherries. One that's going to be plenty of work to do to get it off, there's going to be plenty of opportunity in the marketplace for consumers to eat lots of sweet cherries from the northwest this year. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.