2022 Northwest cherry outlook down from 2021; cold to blame

Northwest cherry growers are expected to produce slightly more than 15 million 20-pound equivalents this season, about 5 million fewer than last year, according to the Round 1 Crop Estimate and Update issued by Yakima-based Northwest Cherry Growers on May 12.

Harvesting in the earliest orchards was expected to get underway May 28 with most early season growers getting underway the first week of June.

“It takes our industry at least 10 days to begin to build up to larger volumes, and that will certainly be the case this year,” B.J. Thurlby, president of Northwest Cherry Growers, said in the update.

The early season volume out of the Northwest should help cherry-focused retailers transition from this year's California crop, he said.

Some unseasonably cold weather in April is primarily to blame for the smaller crop.

“Our weather in the Northwest has been frigid,” Thurlby said in early May. 

The region received snow on bloom for the first time.

But he said in the May 12 update that cherries in the earliest districts, which had already gone through bloom by the time the first snow arrived, appeared to be doing well.

“As of today, the crop is developing beautifully, albeit slowly,” he said.

The unusual cool weather morphed the bloom into both one of the earlier-starting and later-finishing blooms.

“This bodes well for both early and late-season cherry supplies for the shelves,” Thurlby said.

“We haven’t had an April weather situation like this in over 100 years,” said Danelle Huber, marketing specialist for CMI Orchards, Wenatchee, Wash.

“The colder, snowy weather this year created poor pollination conditions in which the bees just were not working when many early-mid-season varieties were in full bloom.”

Northwest growers will still market some outstanding cherries, she said in early May. “We just don’t know how many at this time.” 

Last year, extreme heat was the problem.

The 2021 crop estimate of 24 million 20-pound boxes was reduced to 20.3 million boxes by the heat that hit 118 degrees in several growing districts, according to Northwest Cherry Growers.

Yakima-based Western Sweet Cherry Group LLC expected to begin its new crop sometime between June 10 and 12, said Matt Nowak, who handles domestic and export sales for Grower Direct Marketing LLC, Stockton, Calif., which markets product for Western Sweet Cherry Group.

“It’s a much later crop than usual,” Nowak said. Harvest usually starts around Memorial Day.

He blamed the delay on the heavy late-season snow.

“It will be interesting to see how the crop sets on this early fruit,” he said.

Wenatchee, Wash.-based Stemilt Growers Inc. has the nation’s longest cherry season, said Brianna Shales, director of marketing.

The company started its California harvest in mid-April, which was slightly earlier than usual, and planned to get underway in Washington in mid-June, a tad later than usual.

“It’s been cooler than normal in Washington state during cherry bloom,” Shales said. “We had a very rare snow and cold weather in mid-April that certainly impacted cherry blossoms that typically harvest in the June time frame.”

Stemilt and the industry were still studying the effects of that cold spell, she said. But one thing was certain: “Conditions were not ideal for pollination during these few days of weather.”

Since many cherry orchards were not in bloom at the time, Shales expected to see good volume of cherries in July and August, “but likely a more spread-out crop with more selling days.”

She did not expect a gap between the California and the Northwest crop.

“California started earlier but will go into June,” she said. “They have more shipping days this season with how bloom occurred.”

There should be a “manageable transition” from one region to the next, she said.

For the most part, the weather had been “relatively mild” through the winter, said Chuck Sinks, president of sales and marketing for Yakima-based Sage Fruit Co.

But that all changed in April.

“During early bloom, we experienced about a week of snow, cold (and) wet weather that slowed pollination in a few districts and delayed additional bloom in other districts,” he said. “The Northwest cherry crop has sustained some damage this growing season.”

Growers said they were still assessing the extent of the damage in early May.

Sage Fruit will add cherries from Chelan Fruit this season, so the company’s overall volume should be up, Sinks said, but not as much as had been planned.

“We will have a fair-sized crop of high-quality fruit with excellent marketing potential,” he said.

Thurlby said the cold drops in April “appear to have thoroughly decimated much of our bing crop, as well as cherries grown in colder regions of the Northwest and orchards within local cold pockets.”

Still, he said, “there is definitely a crop out there.”

“Though not as large as some recent seasons, the 2022 crop is still a promotable cherry crop and too valuable to be reallocated to a hidden-away display,” he said.

“As of today, there appear to remain promotable opportunities for what should be a crop of dessert-quality fruit.”