Despite poor weather reducing the cherry crop by an estimated 30-40 percent, growers have been praised for the quality and quantity of the fruit they produced.
Over 160 class entries were recorded at the National Cherry and Soft Fruit Show at Detling last week, a figure that stood up to comparison with last year.
The special award for the champion basket went to Clive Richards of Lower Hope Farm, Ullingswick, Hereford. Emmett Lunny, technologist for event sponsors Marks & Spencer and one of the judges, added that he was impressed that so much excellent fruit had arrived.
"The response was against all odds," agreed chairman Henry Bryant. "The industry came through."
The mood is in sharp contrast to that which pervaded a decade ago. "It has been a long haul and an act of faith to plant, but we are beginning to win," he added.
Other factors include the ongoing replacement of Colt rootstock with Gisela, which has been shown to crop more regularly, and the appearance of bolder darker varieties with improved taste which have been sourced internationally from as far afield as the United States, Canada and Eastern Europe.
Names like Cordia, Skeena, Summer Sun, Penny and Colney are now well known to growers replacing old favourites like Bradbourne Black, and the industry is very optimistic about still numbered English trials now reaching their conclusion at East Malling.
"It all reflects the confidence in the crop with acreage continuing to expand, although set up costs are high," explained Bryant, who believes there is also the potential to develop later varieties.
Planting orchards with netting to reduce bird damage and adding hail protection could cost as much as £12,000 per acre.
A further reflection of the fact came later in the day when members of Mid Kent Growers and its marketing arm Norman Collett visited A R Neaves and Sons, Doddington, on the group's annual orchard walk.
They saw cherries being packed for Tesco on a Calibrex French grading system installed last year, representing an investment of £42,000.
This year it will handle some 30,000 trays of fruit. Half come from Neaves’ own farm, with the balance from several growers for which it packs.
But while the sector was praised for its efforts by Bryant and chief steward Tony Redsell, both expressed disappointment over the lack of response from strawberry growers who exhibit at the National Show alongside raspberries, plums, and for the first time, blueberries.
Several judges took the view that more could be done by the marketing desks, including showcasing new varieties becoming available.
In this category the winner was Red Glory, now in its first commercial year after a five year development in the Redeva programme.
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