Door County cherry crop all but failed, growers say.

Door County anticipates worst cherry crop this season wrote:"Normally we'd have about 8 to 10 million pounds. This year the prediction is about half a million pounds....”

Growers in Door County say they'll try to keep their crop in the county this year, for tourists and locals to enjoy. Prices will be higher....

I don't think the picture in Michigan is any better.

Hi- My sister in Michigan sold all her sweet cherries at her fruit stand in three days, and has been trying to get additional cherries from anywhere in the midwest, including Door County and Traverse City, and there are none to be had, and the few that are being wholesaled in SW Michigan are going for $4,50 a pound wholesale. Last time I talked to her about a week ago, she was considering selling Western cherries for the first time ever.

I broke down and bought a pint of Michigan cherries at the Evanston market for $6 a pint this last Saturday. They were wonderful.

What happened? Weather, I suppose, but specifically?

As the linked news story explains, high temperatures in March broke trees out of dormancy, and then frosts froze the blossoms. This is going to be a bad year for apples, stone fruits and juice grapes, too.

Hi- The abysmal fruit crop in the midwest this year can be blamed on the 80 degree days we had in March. The warm weather caused all the fruit trees, to bloom a month early, as in early April. While the gruit trees were in bloom, we had several nights where the temperature got down in the 20's, and the worst night was on April 27th, when my sister in Michigan got down to 24 degrees for four hours. By then all of her fruit trees had baby fruit on them. Before the 27th, she had 100% of a crop of plums and apricots. Her whole plum and apricot crop got wiped out that evening. Out of the tree fruit peaches seem to have survived the best, although there is still going to be less than half a crop of those. I don't know where the pie manufacturers are going to get their pie cherries this summer. Hope this helps, Nancy

NFriday wrote: I don't know where the pie manufacturers are going to get their pie cherries this summer. Hope this helps, Nancy

As you probably know, sour cherries are also grown in other states and other countries.

Last year wasn't the greatest for peaches either. I was really looking forward to some this year.

I remember reading about the situation a couple of weeks ago, so I thought prices would be sky-high.
Yet, when I was at the produce store, cheeries were selling at $2 for a pound, and peaches were less than a dollar a pound.

The peaches were on the small side but after a day or two on the counter, they were juicy and delecious.

Tragic. And only going to get worse. It seems as if it's not just going to be shifts in weather patterns and zones, (new places becoming more hospitable as traditional ones become less so) but just increased volatility everywhere, with negative consequences all round. Get ready.

Hi- Yes I know that sour cherries are grown in other states and other countries. We grow a few trees of a white fleshed variety of sour cherries, that are very popular in Lithuania. Michigan is by far the largest grower of sour cherries, and the whole midwest is severely affected this year, including door county. I know Pennsylvania has a much smaller crop of tree fruit too, and I assume New York state does too. New York state grows a lot of apples and grapes.

Out West in California and Washington they grow a lot of sweet cherries, and I believe California is the largest grower of sweet cherries, but they don't grow nearly as many sour cherries.

M6y sister normally sells bags of frozen and pitted sour cherries at her fruit stand, but she can's find them this year.

For the person that said that she found sweet cherries for sale for $1.99 a pound, and peaches on sale for under $1, yes, you can find them cheap, but they are shipped in. The cherries are either from California or Washington or Oregon, and the peaches are either from California or Georgia or South Carolina. Western cherries are OK, but the Michigan cherries I bought Saturday for $6 for one pint, are wonderful. I would rather have a small amount of wonderful cherries, as opposed to an unlimited supply of just OK cherries.

Don't even get me started on shipped in peaches in the grocery store. The last time I bought peaches at a grocery store, was about three years ago, when I bought some of Eckert's peaches at Whole Foods. They weren't bad., but they still weren't as good as most of the peaches my sister grows. Eckert's has a large peach farm in the St. Louis area. I will not buy peaches from Dominick's or Jewel, because they will only buy green peaches, which taste like cardboard. They won't buy local peaches or cherries for that matter anyway. They do carry some Michigan blueberries. The chain stores only want peaches that will keep for a week or more, and they only want to deal with mega farmer's. Meijer's does carry some Michigan peaches though. Hope this helps, Nancy

Hi- I just looked it up, and Russia is the largest grower of sour cherries in the world, but in the U.S., 70% of the sour cherry crop is grown in Michigan. Utah supplies 10% of the sour cherry crop in this country, as does Washington..

Well, I bought several cherry concentrate bottles today since I love the stuff and was worried about the cost going up.
B ing cherries locally are still $2.99/lb from SA.

I still have two quarts of sour cherries I picked last summer in my freezer. Was gonna make a pie this week for a friend, but now I'm not sure he's "worth" it.

I picked up a box of sour cherries at the Andersonville farmer's market yesterday (as well as black raspberries, strawberries, and blueberries). Supplies were low, though, and I'm sure they sold out quickly.

My cherries from my tree were wonderful, but only one pie's worth. Luckily I never used up the two bags of pitted frozen fruit I put away last year (and forgot in the bottom of my freezer). And yes, the phrase this year will be "pie worthy." (ob. Seinfeld)

Yep. I have a few jars of cherries left from last year's cherry-pa-looza & a few more in the freezer & I doubt I will be giving away anything cherry,odds are, unless I buy "imported" cherries to put up this year) .

And yes it will be a problem according to a farmer I know in MI for peaches, plums, apricots, (stone fruits) + apples & pears this fall even.

Under the category "It's an ill wind that blows no good", the warm spring gave us our best sour cherry crop since we planted two small trees ten years ago. Usually a late frost deals a sucker punch just when all the fruit trees are in full bloom.

This year we ended up with a few dozen pints of jam, a dozen quarts of pie filling, and a batch of sour-cherry BBQ glaze.

There was an article on Michigan cherries earlier this week in the Wall Street Journal:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... S=cherries


Note that they emphasize that cherries WILL BE available in Traverse City ... but they'll be imported from Poland. At least they are honest and upfront about it.

It is the third straight bad year.

I really wanted to do a Cherry Bounce recipe usingDoor County Cherries and Death's Dooor (made in Door County) white whiskey this summer.

If you drive up to Door County, there are fresh cherries available now. Also frozen cherries and cherry products from last year's crop. Processors are going to have a problem getting cherries, though.

I'm told that frozen cherries hold up really well.

They're also bringing in IQF (frozen) cherries from Poland, as is mentioned in the piece linked above by jlawrence01.

=R=

Going up on Wed. for the long weekend. Will be sure to report back. Speaking of, if there's any new intel on places, please post in the Door County recs thread. http://www.lthforum.com/bb/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=471&start=30
thanks!!

LAZ wrote:If you drive up to Door County, there are fresh cherries available now. Also frozen cherries and cherry products from last year's crop. Processors are going to have a problem getting cherries, though.

I'm told that frozen cherries hold up really well.

I am going up in August. I did find that Woodman's has frozen Door County Cherries and they are pretty reasonable. Might just use those.

An interesting story about the Michigan cherry crop failure on PBS' News Hour tonight.
Here is a link. It is available on line along with a slide show and a text story. Somethings I did not know: The cherry growers had to bring bees up north to Michigan early and some of the bees were hit with freezing temps and they died. Also they talk about the impact of the crop failure not only on the farmers but on people who process the cherries.