Fewer Cherries, Higher Prices: Good year for Flathead cherry growers
This year, smaller was better for the Flathead Lake cherry crop.
A harvest that came in about 50 percent of normal ended up being a solid year for the Flathead Lake Cherry Growers Association. The harvest was down this year, and throughout the Northwest, because of cold weather in spring that affected cherry blooms.
“I think everybody is going to be happy,” Ken Edgington of the growers cooperative said. “Anytime we don’t have a glut of fruit, we all breathe a sigh of relief.”
The growers cooperative represents 80 growers with 100 orchards that sell a variety of Flathead Lake cherries through their marketing association. The cooperative had predicted a 2013 harvest of about 1.5 million pounds — roughly half of a good year. The total for this year was 1.753 million pounds, Edgington said.
“Actually this was a little better year than what we thought,” he said. “The industry overall was going to be down, and we knew that going in. The good thing was we didn’t have, overall, a glut of cherries.”
That meant that prices held up throughout the season. Cherries sold to national marketers through the Flathead Lake
See CHERRY on Page A6
growers cooperative fetched about $1.25 to $1.50 a pound, which was higher than last year, when there was an oversupply of cherries.
“Most of the growers are pretty happy,” Edgington said.
Final numbers will be available in November, when retail store claims for damaged fruit will be finished. Retailers have a 90-day grace period where they can return product.
“We didn’t hear any horror stories,” Edgington said. “Most of our fruit arrived in pretty good shape.”
The Flathead Lake Cherry Growers Association measures its harvest by the number of bins sold. A bin holds about 300 pounds of fruit. This year the association sold 6,390 bins,
The top-selling cherry variety was the Lapin, with 3,607 bins. Lamberts tallied 1,922 bins, and Rainiers, a yellow cherry, were at 602 bins.
The Skeena cherry is a new variety being grown on Flathead Lake for its late-ripening qualities. Coming on to the market later in the season allows this cherry a slot for late-season sales, when most of Washington’s crop has been to the market. The association sold 201 bins of Skeena cherries this year, and that figure is due to rise, since many orchards have planted Skeenas and will bear fruit in the coming years.
The Sweetheart variety sold 48 bins this year.
An old standby, the Bing cherry, sold 10 bins this year. Bing cherries were the popular crop up until 1989, when a cold snap destroyed most of the Flathead Lake cherry orchards.
Even Flathead Lake’s small cherries, which are normally sold as culls for juice, sold well this year, Edgington said.
The Flathead Lake Cherry Growers Association is a Montana agricultural cooperative formed in 1935 and is one of the oldest cooperatives in Montana.
Flathead Lake became a popular place to grow cherries in the 1890s, after the Bitterroot Valley tried to start cherry orchards. The Flathead Lake climate is beneficial for cherries because of mild winter conditions and the area’s well-drained soil.