At the national level, the production forecast for this year is 222,000,000 pounds (100,697 tonnes). Lance Honing from the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service (USDA/NASS) says that a large portion of this figure is due to Michigan.
“Of these 222,000,000 pounds, they represent 182 million pounds of the total. In Michigan, in particular, we are seeing the largest harvest since 2018,” said Honing. In fact, Michigan grows about 75% of tart cherries and has seen an increase of 37.7% compared to last year's harvest.
“We had freezing issues that limited the harvest. So, with this large increase, it is still a historically very large harvest, and we are in great shape for tart cherries this season.”
This year, Michigan is not only leading in cherry production, but it also has the task of keeping the number of sweet cherries high nationally, while other states producing sweet cherries are in decline.
“The national total, 355,000 tonnes, technically you could say it has increased by 3/10 of a percent compared to last year’s production. But if you exclude Michigan, which was not counted in last year’s total, there is a 5.9% decrease compared to last year for the other three states we measured in both seasons,” he explained.
“This is largely due to the fact that we have seen a smaller harvest or are expecting a smaller harvest in both California and Washington. They are by far the dominant producers of sweet cherries in the United States.” In recent years, Michigan has not been included in the sweet cherry production estimates due to low production numbers. Now that the numbers have increased, the USDA has once again included the state in the estimates.
Source: AgNetWest
Image: SL Fruit Service
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