08/08/05 Best cherry season ever?

The Northwest cherry harvest is more or less over. And it appears tonnage wise this will be a good year for the industry. But as cherry growers and packers go, it is not the size of the crop that necessarily guarantees a good crop. Other factors such as fruit size, available markets, and price all come into play. And when you factor in all of those components, well, it has several in the cherry industry smiling. As Washington State University Extension Agent Tim Smith puts it, he has never seen a series of factors come together to produce what might be a banner year for Northwest cherry growers and packers. For example, the tonnage and fruit size benefited from ideal weather conditions during growing season. SMITH: People were a little scared of overabundance of the crop and then because of the problems that they had in other Western states in production, we came into the marketing year with very, very few cherries in the market, and the people in the United States and the rest of the world were hungry for our cherries. There was never a date that there were enough cherries to sell. On top of that, as well as having a large crop, I don't think I've ever seen a higher quality crop. In this case, they were better than we usually grow. And yes, all that has added to good prices for cherries this season. SMITH: And bigger cherries then to be better to eat and people pay more money for them because of that. I have never seen such large cherries on the average. There were very few small cherries to fill the orders that were out there for a lower quality cherry.