Cherry harvest tops 2 million pounds

The total weight of cherries harvested this year was down from a year ago, but the quality was top-notch and the individual cherries were huge, several growers and the president of the cherry growers association say.

Members of the Flathead Lake Cherry Growers delivered slightly more than 2 million pounds of cherries to the processing plant at Finley Point, cherry growers President Dale Nelson said. Last year, considered an excellent year, growers delivered 2.75 million pounds of fruit. A typical harvest in the valley is 2.5 million pounds, he said.

While a few growers still may have some cherries remaining to be picked this year, the association’s processing plant closed a week and a half ago and the entire crop has been shipped out, Nelson said.

Likewise, the independent Glacier Fresh Orchards and Packing processing plant at Yellow Bay closed Aug. 24, owner Cody Herring said.

Herring processed 650,000 pounds of cherries at his plant, from his orchard and from orchards owned by 10 other growers.

“It was a great year, prices were really great,” Herring said. He ships cherries to Canada where he’s part of a brokerage group that exports cherries overseas.

This year’s harvest finished stronger than it began, Herring and Nelson both said.

“It started out pretty good and ended up great,” Herring said. “There were no issues, no rain, no hail to speak of.”

Nelson earlier this summer had estimated the local crop might be less than 2 million pounds.

After getting the final numbers, he said this week, “Overall things turned out even better than expected.”

With the “super good-sized and high-quality fruit” delivered to the processing plant, Nelson said the prices held steady all season, too.

“Everything went pretty smooth,” he said. “The rain didn’t hurt us too much.”

For the first time this year, Flathead cherries were delivered to grocery stores all across Montana under a new program created by the growers association.

“We got calls from a lot of different areas saying they were glad to see cherries in their stores,” Nelson said.

The volume shipped out this year via Charlie’s Produce wasn’t huge, he said, as the waters were tested.

But, based on comments and sales across Montana, the program will occur next year and probably every year in the future, he said.

Also this year for the first time, Flathead cherries were shipped to the Minneapolis and St. Paul areas for sale at Lunds and Byerly’s grocery stores. The store owners wanted only large, top-quality fruit, Nelson said. “They only wanted the best, and they were selling it for $4 to $6 a pound.”

“They went through a lot of volume,” Nelson said. “That went really well. We got a lot of calls from people in Minneapolis and they said the cherries were wonderful.

“They sold 50 percent more than we even thought they could sell,” he said.

At the end of harvest, most of the cherries delivered to Finley Point were bound for Korea and the Pacific Rim, Nelson said. “There’s a big demand for our bigger fruit over there,” he said.

Grower Gary Hoover said he and his wife Susan harvested 11,000 pounds of cherries from their orchard near Yellow Bay. Most were sold at their roadside stand, and Hoover mailed 85 boxes, each containing 10 pounds of cherries, to customers across the United States.

“A lot of my customers from all over the country called to say these were the best cherries they’d ever eaten,” Hoover said.

“The quality was great,” he said. “I didn’t have anybody say one bad thing about my cherries. People are looking forward to next year’s crop.”

Grower Louise Swanberg, whose orchard is on the west shore, finished her harvest about a week ago and closed her roadside stand.

Like the others, Swanberg said this year’s cherries had “fantastic” size and were of “awesome quality.”

“The price was good to us,” Swanberg said. “Even with the lesser crop weight, the good fruit was valuable.”

A few roadside stands are still open around Flathead Lake, Nelson said, but most have closed.

Growers are nearly finished with their orchard work for the year, he said. Picker camps have to be put away for winter, some nutrient spraying occurs in the fall and mowing needs to take place, “but mostly everything is done,” he said.

Reporter Shelley Ridenour may be reached at 758-4439 or sridenour@dailyinterlake.com.