This year's California cherry season is running a week behind schedule due to some wet and windy May weather.
"We're a half a million cartons behind where we should be as an industry at this point in the season," said Dave Martin of Stemilt Growers.
According to Mr Martin, the season is running five to seven days late as the unseasonable weather has delayed fruit maturation, but temperatures are expected to return to seasonal norms over the next 10 days, which should spur production.
"We'll have about a four week period to sell the entire California production. The way things are progressing now, there will definitely be an overlap with the Northwest production," Mr Martin told Fruitnet.com.
By 10 May last season, the California cherry industry had shipped more than 643,000 cartons (8.2kg). So far in 2010, the state's industry has shipped just under 317,000 cartons.
The Northwest cherry deal, while getting under way in early June, is not expected to be heavy in volume for the first two weeks as again cold weather looks to have delayed fruit maturity.
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