Flathead cherry harvest coming soon
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Summer is racing by, and soon workers will be picking Flathead cherries, and stands around Flathead Lake will be selling the sweet, cold fruit. Cherry junkies are excited for the first fruit.
Ken Edlington, who’s on the board of directors of Flathead Cherry Growers Cooperative, said his best guess was that the cherries on Finley Point would be ready to pick about July 20 or 21. Brian Campbell, Monson Fruit Company representative, estimated July 23 so the two men are very close.
Pollinators, trees whose blooms have a lot of pollen, bloom at the same time as the other trees, but some, such as Vans, Stellas and Deacons, will be the first to ripen.
The Polson area received quite a lot of rain on Sunday, which caused a little damage but very few splits on cherries, Campbell said. Although there was a lot of water, it came in a short amount of time, Campbell explained, which was much better for cherries than a 10-hour drizzle. The bright side of the rain for growers was they would not have to irrigate.
To combat the rain, two helicopters hovered above orchards and blew the rain off the fruit.
“The helicopters had it all dried off within two-and-a-half hours,” Campbell said.
Growers don’t want water to sit in the “cup,” the dished area where the stem meets the cherry. Otherwise the cherries will try to absorb the moisture, and that in turn will make them softer.
Finley Point cherries usually ripen earlier than cherries further north, and the Yellow Bay cherries are about two weeks out, Edlington estimated, with Woods Bay fruit two-and-a-half weeks away. That would stretch the cherry harvest to mid-to-late August.
Some of the new strains of cherries, such as Sweethearts and Lapins, are self-pollinators and ripen late, he said. Rainiers, an older cherry type, also self-pollinate.
“Cherries love cool weather,” Edlington explained. “That’s one thing Montana has over every other cherry growing areas.”
Warm daytime temperatures and cool nights allow the cherries to hang on the tree a little longer, firm up and build sugar content.
Also, cherries love Montana’s rocky, well-drained soil since they don’t like their roots to be in standing water.
The crop this year will be bigger than last year’s, Campbell estimated, and the quality looks good.
