Tour caps end of 4-year cherry trial

By LYNNETTE HINTZEThe Daily Inter Lake

Diversity was the take-home message from this year’s tour of the cherry trees growers and researchers are studying for the Flathead County cherry variety trials program.

Fifty-two local growers — a record for the annual early July tour — joined personnel from the Montana Department of Agriculture, Montana State University and scientists Matthew Whiting of Washington State University and Lynn Long of Oregon State as the group evaluated tree size, fruit growth and pruning styles.

This year’s late-season frost was a teachable moment, so to speak, for the need to diversify.

“One of our superstars [the Attika variety] got snowed on and didn’t pollinate well,” said Pat McGlynn, the Montana State University Agriculture Extension agent for Flathead County. “But the Reginas, which didn’t do well last year, did good this year. They like the cool [spring] temperatures. With our random temperatures we don’t know if it will be hot or cold, so diversifying orchards will be the trick.”

Trial trees are growing in seven orchards around Flathead Lake. Six were planted in 2010 and an organic plot was added in 2011.

“The trees are doing great,” McGlynn said. “We’ve wrapped up a four-year study; that’s what we had funding for.”

Many of the growers feel they now have enough information from the trials to convert to other more marketable varieties. Any further study will be up to the growers, McGlynn said, noting that those participating in the trials gave up orchard space and provided care for the trees.

The goal of the trial program was to find varieties that will ripen later in the season than the traditional Lamberts and Lapins grown here, thus extending the harvest beyond that of Washington and other Northwest cherry producers.

In the past, Washington’s cherry harvest finished just as the Flathead cherries were ready. But with a later harvest in Washington, Flathead cherries have at times been refused by an overwhelmed processing facility.

That put the long-term sustainability of the Flathead orchards in question.

Later varieties here would help mitigate the processing challenges in Washington, and earlier cherries would give roadside stand owners a leg up in competing with cherries being trucked to the Flathead from the West Coast.

Firmer cherries would be better for international packaging and transport.

It’s a pivotal year for local growers, because as they transition to new varieties it means ripping out old trees and replacing them through an incentive program with new varieties. The goal of the project was to identify at least two varieties to recommend to Flathead cherry growers interested in changing out some of their Lamberts to later varieties by next year.

All of the test varieties have produced exceptionally well and have proven to be winter-hardy, tolerant of Montana’s high soil pH level and quick to establish. The Pinedale Ruby has proven to be a heavy producer and matures about 10 days later than Lapins. The trees are heavily branched and may be very adaptable to the pedestrian orchard style of pruning.

This year’s tour focused on ways to prune trees to create pedestrian orchards where cherries can be picked from the ground.

The availability of laborers to harvest the cherries will be an issue as time goes on.

“Lots of pickers have been coming here for generations. Now their kids almost for sure won’t be picking cherries” because migrant families are encouraging their children more and more to go to college and get better jobs, McGlynn said.

“You need to be able to be safer and quicker,” she said about the need for pedestrian orchards.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by email at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.