Hard luck has fallen on the California cherry industry once again.
The 2016 season, which at one point was thought to have the potential for as much as 8m cartons (8.2kg), is now expected to total no more than 5m cartons — possibly lower — as repeated rain events has wreaked havoc on fruit quality.
'It rained eight times during the course of the season,' lamented Dave Martin of Stemilt Growers. 'The southern districts [the San Joaquin Valley] got hit several times and then a storm on 6 May damaged the late crop in the north. There's heavy splitting in the fruit everywhere and growers are already preparing their insurance claims. Everyone's losing [money] this year. It's a real shame.'
According to California Cherry Board, shipments had reached the 3.97m carton mark as of 18 May. Just under 6m cartons were shipped during the 2015 season. The leading variety packed so far has been the Coral Champagne at 1.39m cartons, followed by Brooks at just under 850,000. The Bing variety — the traditional backbone of the California industry — had accounted for a mere 374,236 cartons to date, although that figure is expected to climb over the next several days.
'The [California] deal is coming to a rapid end,' said Martin. 'Most of the Bings should be done by Sunday (22 May), although there will be some odds and ends shipped through next week.'
Supply channels in key Asian markets are evidently devoid of cherries as Washington state marketers report being hounded by importers wanting to know when Pacific Northwest season would get under way. That has actually happened as the warmest March and April in history brought Northwest industry to a record early start with organic fruit picked in southern Washington on 18 May; the first conventional cherries are expected to be available in limited quantities next week. However, the last few days has seen cool and unsettled weather descend on the region with rain expected to fall sporadically through this weekend.
The industry association Northwest Cherry Growers currently estimates 2016 production at 19.8m cartons (9.1kg) or about 2.5 per centabove last year's level. If that forecast holds, it will be the second season in row where pack-outs failed to reach the 20m carton mark. Most industry experts feel the Pacific Northwest has the potential to reach 25m cartons in any given season as cherry acreage continues to increase annually. The Northwest's largest season on record occurred in 2014 when 23.2m cartons were shipped.The 2016 crop is all but certain fall far below that level and might not even match last year'sproduction.
'This Bing crop isshorter than everyone thinks,' said Martin. 'My personal opinion is that we'll ship no more 17m cartons as an industry this year.'
Whatever the 2016 volume turns out to be, the Northwest Cherry Growers arepredicting that more than 50 per cent of the cherry crop will be harvested during themonth of June, leaving far less product during July compared to recent seasons. Only minimalquantities of Northwest cherries should be available by August.
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