Cherry harvest begins
By NANCY KIMBALL
The Daily Inter Lake
Temperatures are up and the Flathead cherry harvest is on.
This year's start is nearly a week earlier than normal, Flathead Lake Cherry Growers President Dale Nelson said.
"The heat speeds things up. This is probably the earliest harvest we've had in a long time," Nelson said on Monday. "We usually start on the 18th or 20th [of July], and we've been picking now for three or four days."
Roadside cherry stands along Montana 35 from Polson to Bigfork started opening for business over the weekend, offering the first fruits of the year.
Around Bigfork, the cherries generally were selling for $1.50 to $1.75 a pound.
"They're looking good," Nelson said. "They're nice, firm fruit."
When cherries are picked in the cool of the day - workers start at 5 a.m., Nelson said - and handled carefully, the quality stays high.
"The colder the fruit, the more firm it is. And the colder the fruit, the less likely it is for the stem to come off. Our standard is to sell them with the stems," he said.
"The rule of thumb is to stop picking when it hits 80 degrees."
That leaves the heat of the day for ripening tomorrow's pick. As long as the cherries are not harvested when the temperature is high, July's heat hasn't hurt the crop.
By the end of the harvest, the cooperative's 100 members expect to ship around 3 million to 4 million pounds of cherries - up from an average year's 2.7 million to 3 million pounds.
"It was just a real good bloom this spring" with warm weather when pollination came on, Nelson said.
He said the association just sent six semi-loads out of the plant to Monson Fruit Co. in Washington, where they are packed and then sold through Domex Marketing. Most of the local crop ends up with the big buyers such as Wal-Mart, Sam's Club, Kroger's and Costco.
"We sell a little locally, but there's so much here that you can't get rid of 3 million pounds," Nelson said.
With only another 10 days to two weeks left in the harvest, people who like to pick cherries themselves at local orchards or buy them fresh at roadside stands need to move their calendars forward.
"They think they can usually pick at the end of July or first of August," Nelson said. "But they'd better get here before then or they'll miss out. If you want to buy fruit up here, you better be coming up in the next couple weeks."
Harvest usually starts in Polson and runs north as the temperatures work their way toward the top of the lake, he said.
"But with this heat, everyone started picking at the same time," he said.
He said there is plenty of labor available to harvest the crop this year, with growers sharing their workers as orchards are picked out while others still need working.
As those workers continue with the harvest, the association asks motorists to keep an eye out for slow-moving vehicles. It's an agricultural area, with people searching for orchard driveways and trucks hauling trailers loaded with cherry bins.
On Saturday, Polson will host the first-ever Cherry Festival in the downtown area. From 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. there will be cherry games and contests, cherry pies, music and more than 100 vendors offering cherry-themed arts and crafts, agricultural products, food and handcrafted items.
Reporter Nancy Kimball may be reached at 758-4483 or by e-mail at nkimball@dailyinterlake.com