Cherry growers prepare for solid harvest, cherry festival
Daniel Martynowicz
Orchard owner and operator Dick Beighle inspects his crop just days before harvest. Beighle expects this year’s crop to be a good one despite an unseasonal frost early in the growing season.
Daniel Martynowicz
Orchard owner and operator Dick Beighle inspects his crop just days before harvest. Beighle expects this year’s crop to be a good one despite an unseasonal frost early in the growing season.
Daniel Martynowicz
Orchard owner and operator Dick Beighle inspects his crop just days before harvest. Beighle expects this year’s crop to be a good one despite an unseasonal frost early in the growing season.
Daniel Martynowicz
Cherry trees grow in tidy rows on Beighle’s orchard on Finley Point
Daniel Martynowicz
A sprinkler keeps the cherries cool during a hot summer day at Beighle’s orchard on Finley Point.
Daniel Martynowicz
Cherries ripen in the summer sunshine.
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POLSON — Flathead Lake Cherry Growers Secretary and Board of Directors member Ken Edgington said the organization’s 80 growers have seen favorable conditions so far this year, adding that he hopes to see at least 1.3 million pounds of cherries harvested in the coming months.
“You really can’t tell, but I think most of us were pleasantly surprised by the amount of cherries on the trees,” he said. “I think everybody who has some of the later (blooming) varieties noticed their trees were set up pretty nicely.”
Edgington said that in years past, the FLCG processing center on Finley Point had seen harvests as high as four to five million pounds. While harvest amounts can range drastically, “based on what Mother Nature may or may not do to you,” he said the biggest factor has been the retail market demand.
“The thing that has changed a lot is that they — the retail market — want larger fruit. Size matters a lot more today than it did five or 10 years ago, so most of us have pruned our trees back harder to make the tree produce less fruit and bigger fruit,” he said. “The market demands are for bigger and bigger cherries. Will we ever hit five million pounds again? Maybe not, because most of us are trying to grow larger fruit rather than more fruit.”
Field manager Brian Campbell said he hopes the harvest will start on July 18.
“The crop overall is a smaller amount than normal, but other than that it looks very good,” he said. “There hasn’t been any damaging rain or anything like that, so it looks really good.”
Cherry growers in Washington and Oregon have had a harder time this year with a good deal of rain at harvest time. Edgington said the area around Flathead Lake is well suited to cherry trees, as the trees tend to prefer a rocky, quick-draining soil.
“The ideal conditions are to have good spring rains, but then go into mid-July and mid-to-late-August with no heavy rain storms,” he said. “As the cherry is getting closer to harvest, if rain gets onto it, it has a tendency to suck the water into the skin of the cherry.”
Much like a water balloon, overly-hydrated cherries tend to burst if they take in too much water through their skin. As cracked cherries are less appealing to supermarket customers, they are usually used for juice. Cherries sold for juice do not bring a premium price.
This may be the fate of many cherries from Washington and Oregon.
“Those growers had a lot of rain right at their harvest time,” Edgington said. “The crops are not going to be as big as they have been in the past, so the market is not flooded.”
This unfortunate turn of events for Washington and Oregon could turn profitable for Montanans, as the harvest season is later in the summer.
“We’ve always been fortunate to be the last out there producing cherries,” Edgington said. “We thought early in the game that we were in trouble. We had a cold snap after the trees were in bloom and we were worried it would hurt the pollination, meaning not as many blossoms would turn into cherries, but conditions have been pretty good so far.”
