Cherries…this year’s crop of this summertime, Fourth of July treat is now being harvested.
“They’re readily available in grocery stores here very soon. Anyway, I’m sure we’re starting to see some now.”
Lance Honig of USDA is National Agricultural Statistics Service says harvest continues until about mid-July. You may know there are two types of cherries, sweet and tart. How are they different, besides the obvious clues in their names? Honig explains with sweet cherries…
“This time of year we think about cherries, especially around the Fourth of July. They tend to be a staple at some of those Fourth of July picnics and gatherings. And we’re really talking about the sweet cherries. These are the cherries that are typically eaten fresh. They really don’t store well, and so this is the time of year when they mature and get harvested, and so they’re readily available while with tart cherries, this is what you see appearing in your pies and your pastries and other delicious desserts where cherries are featured. And because of the nature of that, we freeze them, we store them, and so we can find those pretty much year-round.”
And when it comes to keeping track of sweet and tart cherries and USDA production reports…
“If you look at when we publish estimates, we’ll publish both sweet and tart cherry numbers, and you’ll never see in an ass report a total cherry number, and that is simply because the crops are so unique that it really doesn’t make any sense to put them together.”
So perhaps the question on your mind, will there be plenty of cherries available this year? Honig starts with a look at this year’s sweet cherry harvest forecast, which…
“Represents the largest crop since 2017.”
With a projected year over year production increase of 4% driving the production gains. The nation’s largest cherry growing state, Washington.
“They’re expecting about a 29% increase this season. Weather’s been really good for the crop there. And so great news from both Washington and a national perspective.”
A slight production rise is also reported in Oregon. The offset in sweet cherry production this season is California.
“Some extreme weather during the bloom, and as a result, they’re actually looking at a crop that’s about 38% smaller than last year.”
Michigan is far and away the largest tart cherry growing state in the US, yet Honig says…
“It’s a really tough season for the fact they’re looking at about a 41% drop in tart cherry production this year due to poor weather.”
That poor weather, however, was not a major freeze of it usually associated with tart cherry production declines.
“That’s not the case this year. It’s just been not good weather. It’s a pretty big drop. In fact, nationally, that means we’re only looking at 139 million pounds this year. That’s more than a third below last season’s crop. It’ll be the smallest crop since 2020, and the second smallest crop since that disastrous year of 2012 when Michigan lost almost all their cherries.”