Weather Destroys Northwest Cherry Crop

Storm Clouds

Advertisement

Rains followed by warm temperatures have left the Northwest early cherry crop in ruins.

“No areas have been spared,” Roger Pepperl, marketing manager of Stemilt Growers, told The Wenatchee World. “It’s been one weather event after another. This will be a year to remember.”

Growers have found it difficult to harvest the cherries and many have opted to leave the split fruit on the tree instead of incurring additional costs associated with harvesting and packing.

The Washington cherry crop was originally estimated at 18 million 20-pound boxes but is now expected to come in at 13-14 million 20-pound boxes.

Top Articles
Have a Plan For Climate Change? Why Fruit Growers Need To Act Now

B.J. Thurlby, president of Northwest Cherry Growers, told The Wenatchee World that marketers had hoped for 6-7 million boxes available, but 4.8 million boxes had been packed last week,

For more on this story, click here.

0

Leave a Reply

Avatar for Tim Evans Tim Evans says:

We beg to differ, especially with the headline here. Yes, we did have some early weather events that impacted the first half of the season, but there are promotable volumes of quality cherries being picked daily in the Pacific Northwest, especially in the Northern growing district. Chelan Fresh Marketing will have promotable volumes through the balance of July and into the first week of August. We are actually seeing some very high quality Canadian varieties, especially Lapin and Skeena. Year in and year out our Lapins out perform most other varities on quality.

Avatar for Diane Peebles Diane Peebles says:

I also beg to differ. Especially with the headline. As a grower of cherries in the Lake Chelan area of NC Washington we have survived the ridiculous weather. We are supplying some very good cherries. I feel bad for those who have suffered the loss of their cherry crops and hope they are able to recover from the losses.

Avatar for Willie Willie says:

They sure are treating cherries like there is a shortage at the supermarket. $4.98/lb for Bings and $6.98 for Rainier. This cherry lover won't touch them at that prices.

Avatar for anne anne says:

We have Chelan Fresh cherries on sale in San Diego. They are not sweet. I actually thought you might have had a bad year that is why I checked your weather. Hope we will get better cherries later if you have some late varieties.

Advertisement