06/13/05 Decreased cherry crop projections

06/13/05 Decreased cherry crop projections

There had been talk over the last two months that this year's Northwest cherry crop had the potential to be one of the largest ever, possible topping that magical twelve million box milestone. But according to B.J. Thurlby of Northwest Cherries, the twelve million mark will not be reached. THURLBY: Overall, the crop is not going to be a larger crop this year. But will it be close to a record of over eleven million boxes? Thurlby said just three weeks ago that by every indication the crop most likely would reach eleven million boxes for the third year in a row. But that was three weeks ago. Since then the numbers have been revised and have come in even smaller. The latest projection is now for a crop volume of eight to nine million twenty-pound boxes. The reason for just a big drop over a month's period of time has been the rainy weather as well as freezes in some parts of the fruit growing region. THURLBY: There are certainly some trees that have an adequate sized cherry crop tied to it, but there's a lot of trees that have just really had a severe drop and we're not seeing as many cherries per cluster as we've seen the last couple of years. And Thurlby adds, with less than a month left to go in many areas before harvest, those numbers are again subject to change, pending on weather related conditions. But there might be a bright spot to the decreased crop volume. With California's cherry crop also expected to be small this year, Northwest Cherries should continue to fetch high prices for growers.
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