Flathead growers expect early, fruitful cherry harvest

Flathead cherry lovers could get their hands on the fruit just a little bit early this year as a warm growing season has area orchards looking to begin harvesting by the end of the month.

According to Bruce Johnson with the Flathead Lake Cherry Growers, the excessive heat of the past week has growers irrigating their trees more than usual, but the outlook for this year's crop is promising.

"The main crop is looking good, and we have a lot more right now than we did last year, though the heat is a big factor right now. Cherry trees and cherries like sunshine, but enough is enough," he said with a laugh. "We are all irrigating as much as we can right now. The trees need water to do their thing, and we are losing a lot of our moisture right now. Hopefully the moisture we have in the ground plus the irrigation will be enough."

According to Johnson, cherry pollination in the Flathead typically occurs around Mother's Day, but warm temperatures this spring brought on the process slightly early.

"We had a good pollination period, good flowers and the bees did their thing, so we have a lot of fruit sitting on the trees right now. The weather has been great the rest of the season," he said. "We had a couple of nice rain events that brought us a few inches of precipitation. The rains were slow and steady for a long period of time and that was really nice. We are a little behind overall in our rain amounts, but we are in good shape overall."

Denise Bowman Wermer of Bowman Orchards on Flathead Lake's east shore shares Johnson's optimism.

"We feel like our trees have a lot more cherries on them than they did last year, so that is good. Things are looking good for us," she said. "We are looking at a late July start for our harvesting, and we hope to be able to pick through August, if we can."

While the heat has sped up the maturing process for the area's cherries, Johnson said the high temperatures can be problematic during harvest.

"With high heat, the picking process becomes very difficult. If you bruise a cherry, it becomes a cull. You don't want to pull the stems out, either. Both of those occur much easier if the weather is hotter."

Pickers typically begin work in the mornings and stop around noon or when the weather climbs above 80 degrees.

Johnson said he is expecting this year's Flathead cherry crop to be close to the average of 2-3 million pounds, up from last year's crop of 1.75 million pounds.

While the crop may have been down a bit, Johnson said demand for Lapin cherries was higher than ever during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"It almost felt like COVID improved sales for us. With all of the people staying home and being more health-conscious, it seemed like people were buying more healthy foods, such as cherries," he said. "I think the main thing for us last year was having to check the health of our picking crews every morning. I can't remember any of our workers having a COVID case, so we must have handled it well."

With this summer's influx of tourists, Johnson said the outlook for the the valley's cherry growers is looking good.

"Our area is known for cherries, and there are people who come here during our harvest each year just to buy cherries. Tourists like to stop at the roadside stands and the grocery stores to get our cherries, so increased tourism is a good thing for us," he said. "We are expecting a good crop and a good market again this year."

Reporter Jeremy Weber may be reached at 406-758-4446 or jweber@dailyinterlake.com.