Cherry crop off to good start around Flathead Lake

YELLOW BAY — Several hundred people came out to take a look at newly forming cherries and grab a good meal during the 10th annual Cherry Blossom Festival.

“Basically, it celebrates the cherry blossoms and the start of the cherry season,” said Barbara Hammons, Yellow Bay Ladies Auxiliary president.

The event, put on by the auxiliary, is a fundraiser for the upkeep of the clubhouse, where community members and cherry groups gather. Part of the nearly $2,000 raised during this year’s event will go toward auxiliary charities of choice, Hammons added.

This year’s cherry crop is looking good. Already, cherries are burgeoning on trees along Flathead Lake.

Despite a cold snap April 21 that took out about 50 percent of tree flowers, the crop isn’t a loss, said Brian Campbell, Monson Fruit Company’s field representative for the area who consults with Flathead cherry growers.

“Most orchards have a pretty decent looking crop,” Campbell said.

After the cold weather, four days of warm, windless weather encouraged bees to pollinate, he said.

“It’s not going to be a bumper crop, but that sometimes is not good to have too many cherries because then you don’t have the good quality, you don’t get the large size,” he said.

“Most every orchard will have a pickable crop,” he added, stressing that pickers will have plenty of work come harvest time.

Flathead cherry growers aren’t the only ones expected to see a dip in harvests, with Northwest cherry growers expected to collect 18 million boxes of the fruit compared to the 23 million last harvest, Campbell said.

The Flathead co-op expects slightly under the average 2 million pounds, or 100,000 boxes usually picked from area orchards, he added.

Growers are already looking down the road, and are replacing older trees mainly with Sweetheart variety trees. The variety ripens later in the year, when other cherry supplies already have been exhausted. The idea is that at Labor Day, when there’s a high demand for cherries, Flathead Lake growers will be the only ones with a supply, Campbell said.

It takes about five years before a tree is commercially pickable, he said.

Favorite varieties, like the Lambert, still will be grown.

“But they’ll also be picking cherries up until mid-August or later,” Campbell said. “So it will just extend our season.”