Cherry harvest a bit late this year

By this time next month the Flathead Valley cherry harvest should be in full swing, giving connoisseurs of the luscious fruit the taste they’ve been waiting for all year.

“We’re probably a month away now, just a little bit later than normal, which is good for us,” said Bruce Johnson, president of the Flathead Lake Cherry Growers, a cooperative of about 70 member growers that ship the chilled cherries to Monson Fruit Co. in Selah, Washington, for processing.

Johnson said a harvest of about 2 million pounds is expected, on par with last year’s harvest, which was just over 2 million pounds. That doesn’t include non-members who operate private cherry orchards.

There was a small amount of crop damage in the Polson and Finley Point orchards due to unseasonably cold weather in early March.

“There’s not much fruit to be had in Polson and a few parts in Finley Point,” Johnson said. “The rest are fine. We had cold pockets this spring … in a couple of small locations where the temperature got below that threshold and damaged the buds.”

He estimated the damages affected less than 10 percent of the overall crop.

The recent cool weather is good for cherry growers, Johnson said, because it puts the timing of the Flathead harvest after the Washington cherry crop has peaked.

“Here’s the good news. If you look at Wednesday’s grocery ads, there are cherry ads all over the place. Those are Washington cherries,” Johnson said. “We hope they come out strong before the Fourth of July, and then we kind of hope the [Washington] crop drops off mid-to-late July. Their crop drops off as ours comes on.”

Flathead Lake is the latest geographic site in North America to grow cherries, and that tends to give local growers an advantage in marketing the crop.

Johnson said the recent rains have benefited the cherry crop.

“June rains are really good for the cherries,” he said. “It’s the last two to three weeks of the harvest when we get antsy about rain.”

Johnson said cherry stands will start popping up locally in mid-July, featuring some of the early varieties. The bulk of the harvest will hit the market the last week in July and will go about two weeks into August.

A list of retail sellers is posted on the cherry growers’ website at www.montanacherries.com.