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

09 Jul 2024
336

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


Cherry Times - All Rights Reserved

What to read next

Finca Albalate's greenhouses offer optimal conditions for promoting cherry cultivation

Planting systems

26 Jul 2024

Some of this work was also carried out in other external farms belonging to their customers, located in different parts of Spain, Azerbaijan or Georgia: where the homogenisation of flower products is being tested.

Zillazeus: the cherry that challenges Chelan in the early market

Varieties

25 Jun 2024

Fewel's orchard in Washington has 17 acres of this variety. After proving that it was genetically unique, he patented it in 2019 and hopes to sell it to industry under the trade name 'Zillazeus' (commonly abbreviated 'Zeus', it is patented as TF 7142).

In evidenza

The role of supercooling in sweet cherry flower buds to avoid frost damage

Tech management

17 Oct 2024

Experiments were conducted on sweet cherry flower buds using differential thermal analysis (DTA), a technique that monitors the release of heat due to ice melting. Researchers observed the formation of ice within the bud structure, identifying barriers that prevent its spread.

Fruit fly and high volume: these are Chile's challenges for the 2024-25 campaign

Events

17 Oct 2024

This season has added another hurdle for producers and exporters, specifically the fruit fly. Given its importance for the sector, Frutas de Chile has organized the webinar “Preparing for the 2024-2025 cherry season with phytosanitary challenges.”

Tag Popolari