Time is ripe: After slow start, cherry growers expect successful season
By MICHAEL JAMISON of the Missoulian
BIGFORK - A cold, wet spring delayed the Flathead Lake cherry harvest, and midsummer rains split some of the crop wide open, but growers say both fruit quality and the market are excellent this year, and they're predicting a successful season.
“It's looking pretty good, actually,” said longtime cherry farmer Jerry Bowman. “We've had a variety of problems, but we're going to be OK.”
In a “normal” year, the Flathead produces about 3 million pounds of cherries worth more than $4 million. Trees hung heavy with a 4 million-pound bumper crop last summer, but growers say this harvest could be half of that - somewhere short of 2 million pounds.
“We had the April freeze,” Bowman said, “prior to the bloom. It just got a little too cold, and that kind of thinned things out.”
Manuel Soria ascends a ladder: Thursday morning at the Hidden Rock Orchard on the East Shore of Flathead Lake as the annual cherry harvest approaches the halfway point. A good cherry picker like Soria can make from $70 to more than $100 a day, depending on the crop. Photo by MICHAEL GALLACHER/Missoulian
The buds, he said, are susceptible as soon as they begin to swell, and after a frost “the flowers can still look fine, but things aren't good inside. One or two cold nights is all it takes.”
The lingering cold also affected pollination, “because the bees don't come out of the hive if it's cold and damp,” said Dale Nelson, president of the Flathead Lake Cherry Growers Association. “Those bees just didn't work as hard in some orchards.”
Then came a June snowstorm, wet and soggy, bending branches and chilling the young fruit.
“It was a long spring,” Bowman said, “with a lot of moisture.”
Moisture straight into July, in fact, with mid-month rains arriving right before the prime picking time.
The rainwater's pure, almost distilled, he said, and the juice in the fruit is sugared. The two different concentrations create an exchange - science calls it osmosis - and the fruit sucks in the rainwater.
“That sizes them up,” Bowman said, “makes them plump.”
Too plump, though, and the skin splits wide open.
(In recent years, farmers have gone so far as to contract helicopters to hover over orchards, blowing rainwater off the crop near harvest time.)
Some growers have reported splits in up to 25 percent of their already reduced crop.
“A lot of orchards are very light this year,” Bowman said.
But they're also fairly late, too - the latest in 15 years, by some accounts - and that's a bonus in a business where winning often means coming in last.
Flathead Lake fruit, Bowman said, has traditionally been the last to set, which means all the competition is off the shelves and demand is high. This year, the Flathead's a full two weeks later than usual, and the market is clamoring for more cherries.
“We basically have dodged a lot of bullets,” Nelson said. “The fruit we have is exceptionally large, and we're pretty much the only ones in stores right now. The price is stronger than last year, and it's still rising.”
“Prices are very good,” Bowman agreed. He's getting $1.50 a pound wholesale, $2 a pound retail.
Jenny Goodson, who was working a roadside stand south of Bigfork this week, said business was brisk at $2.50 a pound. “People are saying they're extra juicy this year,” she said. “Extra sweet and really fat.”
That, of course, is the upside to those recent rains - whatever didn't split plumped up nicely.
“Fruit like that sells itself,” Nelson said.
Well, almost.
In addition to the perennial roadside stands, Nelson's outfit markets local cherries far and wide, with special promotions well beyond Montana's borders.
Last year, he kicked off a series of special promotions in places such as Indiana, Illinois, Ohio and California, pitching pristine Montana-made taste. It was, he said, “everything we expected and more.”
The promotion even included a sweepstakes for a free Montana vacation, and this year he's upped the ante to two vacations. His three-year goal is to market a million pounds per year through those special promotion sales.
In addition, he's convinced regional Costco, Safeway and Wal-Mart stores to label Flathead fruit as grown in Montana. Within the state, 10 Wal-Mart “superstores” are setting up large Flathead cherry displays, with at least one appearance by Gov. Brian Schweitzer.
“They're really pushing the whole local flavor angle,” Nelson said. “We're trying to build a brand people recognize.”
The recognizable red cherry that made the Flathead famous - the Lambert - was first to arrive this season, a softer and juicier fruit than others.
“Personally,” Bowman said, “I think it has the best flavor.”
Like a summer's day on the tongue is the Lambert, juicy red lip-smacking sweet, complex, refined, what the wild huckleberry is to the commercial blueberry.
Next to ripen were the Lapins, much loved by grocers because they're consistently shapelier, considerably firmer, a better shipper, more rain resistant, with longer shelf life. Crunchy, oversized, pleasantly round, but without the punch a Lambert packs, Lapins look good and don't tend to bruise along the way.
It's a marketing thing, Bowman said, and Lapins are fast replacing Lamberts along the shores of Flathead Lake.
Finally the Rainier arrived, “and people just seem to love that cherry,” Bowman said. Perhaps because the yellow-blush fruit doesn't stain your chin crimson.
Crunchier still, the Rainier's flavor pales relative to the Lambert - like a green banana or still-hard avocado compared to their rich, ripe counterparts.
“I grow them all,” Bowman said, “because everybody's tastes are different.”
Montana, he said, is pretty much the only place picking these days, and the harvest should stretch several more weeks still, particularly in the higher orchards.
He's maintaining a “pretty good-sized crew” to pick his 12,000 trees, which while not exactly sagging with fruit are still looking strong.
“It just depends,” Bowman said, “from one orchard to the next. Some places look OK, and some are very, very light.
“It just goes that way. Every year, some people do well while others don't. There's just so many variables, and you hope for the best.”
