north-west cherries US

While volumes are expected to be up on last year, a late start is predicted for harvesting of Northwest cherries this season.

According to a report in the Tri-City Herald, the industry in the region predicts this year's fresh crop will be 16.4m cartons. This would equate to a 16 per cent increase over last year’s harvest of 14.1m cartons.

Northwest Cherry Growers president BJ Thurlby predicted only 3m cartons would be packed for export during June, which is about half of the usual volume, the newspaper reported.

“The crop will be about a week behind schedule in the southern districts and at least ten days late in the north,” said Mr Thurlby. “Historically we’ve started the season around the beginning of June, but the way things are looking now I doubt we’ll pick a cherry before June 10.”

Mr Thurlby said the industry was optimistic about the export potential of the crop this year and hoped to send 5m cartons of fruit abroad.

Typically exports account for less than 30 per cent of fruit sales, although sales to foreign markets would be helped out this year by a weak US dollar, the newspaper reported.

Europe presented good export opportunities for the later crop, said Mr Thurlby, as locally-grown fruit would be exhausted by the time Northwest cherries reached markets there.

While Canada is the region’s top export destination, Asia also provides strong markets with Hong Kong and China taking the most fruit, followed by Taiwan and Japan.

Mr Thurlby said this year’s crop would fall short of the record year of 2009 when the crop exceeded 20m cartons.