With freezing problems behind it, Michigan expects a historic cherry yield for the 2024 season

It is cherry pie season, and Michigan is the nation's leading producer of tart cherries, the preferred variety for pies.

Nationally, the expected production for this year is 222 million pounds (100,697 metric tons). Lance Honing of the USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service says that a large portion of this total is due to Michigan.

"Michigan accounts for 182 million pounds (82,554 metric tons) of this total. In Michigan, specifically, producers are facing the largest harvest since 2018," said Honing. In fact, Michigan grows about 75% of the tart cherries and has seen a 37.7% increase compared to last year's harvest.

"We have had freezing issues that limited the harvest. So, with this big increase, it's 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 also has the task of maintaining the national number of sweet cherries, while other states producing sweet cherries are declining.

"The total national number, 355,000 metric tons, technically you could say it increased by 30% compared to last year's production. But if you exclude Michigan, which was not counted in the total last year, 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 expect 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 was not included in the sweet cherry production estimates due to low production numbers. Now that the numbers have increased, the USDA has included the state again in the estimates.

Source: Michigan Today
Image: Black Star Farms

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