Agriculture 2013, The Chronicle, Omak, Wash. — Page 9
Record harvest produces decent return By Al Camp The Chronicle WENATCHEE – Despite a hailstorm that ruined cherries in a few portions of the Okanogan Valley, a record regional cherry harvest in 2012 produced a decent return for growers. Last summer’s record 22.9 million 20-pound boxes of cherries finished with an average Washington price of $35.67 per box, Washington Growers Clearing House Assistant Manager Dan Kelly said. “That’s a pretty good size crop on cherries,” Kelly said. The $1.83-per-pound price compares with $2.17 ($43.50 per box) in 2011 (17 million boxes) and $2.09 ($41.77 per box) in 2010 (13 million boxes), according to clearing house records. The previous record crop for cherries, which are harvested from early June through Labor Day in early September, was 20.4 million boxes in 2009. That crop proved a bust in the market, averaging $28.49 per box ($1.42 per pound). The difference this year in a higher price per box was both more people eating cherries and the season being spread out twice as long as in 2009. That year, orchardists had about 45 days to pick their crop, which then flooded the market. Most cherry varieties bloomed about the same time in the spring, rather than over a spread-out period. That led to the majority of cherries being ready for harvest at roughly the same time. “All of a sudden it came to harvest,” Kelly said. This year, a more spread-out bloom period led to 80 days for harvest and allowed twice as long for consumers to purchase the fruit. “Even if there were no labor issue, it would have been really difficult to pick that fast,” Kelly said, noting a lot of cherries were left on trees. “This year, there still were some labor issues, but we had more time to pick.” Cherries are one of few fruits with consumption on the upswing in recent years, Robert Kershaw, president and chief executive officer of Domex Superfresh Growers in Yakima, said at the recent 70th annual Cherry Institute of Northwest Cherry Growers meeting. That is good news for a region that’s doubled production in the last 10 years, Kershaw said. In North Central Washington, hail damaged several orchards July 20.
The thunderstorm, accompanied by thumbnail-sized hail, rain and pounding winds, damaged cherries along with other fruit and canola crops. The storm also ruined nearly the entire canola crop at the Townsend Ranch east of Okanogan. But during harvest, packers were seeing good quality fruit from most areas with some size problems in certain areas, Kelly said. Rain damaged some fruit, but most escaped splitting. Harold Schell, horticultural director with Chelan Fruit in Chelan, said some areas received severe hail damage from the July 20 storm and several other storms later in the summer, while others weren’t touched. His company has growers from Quincy to the Canadian border. Hail also damaged some apples, but pears are a little hardier and can handle the pounding better, he said. Rain and heat are cherries’ main enemies. What rain the region received did not split cherries, Schell said. Heat can foster decay.
Washington Growers Clearing House Dee Camp/The Chronicle
The chart shows a comparison of per-box f.o.b. prices for selected varieties of pears, as of Jan. 12 in three successive years. “But we’ve got a lot of good cherries to harvest,” he said last summer. “It all depends on the location of the orchard and variety and how close to harvest they are.” Kelly said growers had no trouble marketing the fruit, which was sold as a fresh-market crop. “Cherries are picked, packed and shipped in a very short time 24 to 48 hours,” Kelly said.
Washington produces mostly sweet cherries, but a few growers have tart cherries, regarded by some as pie cherries, Kelly said. Those who have tart varieties should do well, since Michigan,
the nation’s leading producer of tart cherries, lost many of its cherries and almost all its apple crop to weather this year, Kelly said. There was a big demand for tart cherries.
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A record number of cherries came off the trees in the state during 2012.
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