California may produce a 10-million-box cherry crop this year and that's a concern to Pacific Northwest cherry growers, especially if the California crop is late.
California's crop comes first. In a perfect season it opens the pipeline and gets juices flowing for cherries before the larger Northwest crop, mainly Washington, hits the market.
The main concern in the Northwest is always the overlap. Too many California cherries too late gets in the way of the Northwest crop, making it hard to get good prices and even sell. If California finishes too soon there's a lag between the crops, retail shelf space is lost, consumers move onto other items and can be fickle about coming back, B.J. Thurlby, president of Northwest Cherry Growers and the Washington State Fruit Commission in Yakima, Wash., has said.
"Growers think we have potential for 10 million boxes this year, depending on weather," says Jim Culbertson, executive manager of the California Cherry Advisory Board in Lodi.
California produced 8.3-million, 18-pound boxes of cherries last year and 8.6 million in 2008. It once averaged about 6 million and ran half that in 2005 and 2006 when rain, frost and poor bloom took a toll.
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