Cherry harvest in Northwest looks promising, especially after last two years

Knock on wood: This year’s cherry season should be better for Northwest growers, who are coming off a disaster of a 2023 harvest year.

It looks like it will be better for consumers, too.

B.J. Thurlby, president of Northwest Cherry Growers, said the size of the cherries are some of the biggest he’s seen.

“These are big cherries,” he said. “We’re seeing such good fruit on the trees.”

He said a regular harvest year might yield about 8% “9-row,” or about 20-millimeter fruit. Those cherries could make up about 30% of the harvest this year.

“I haven’t ever seen it. I’m really excited,” he said.

Mild temperatures and an earlier California harvest has meant that Northwest cherries have been moving quickly through the system and selling well at stores, he said. The demand may finally exceed the supply.

“The best part of the story, is it’s selling at the store,” Thurlby said.

It is a sigh of relief to Thurlby, who said the industry started the year “in trepidation.”

It’s also good for growers like Kevin Knight of Naches.

Knight Orchards off U.S. Highway 12 is a long-running family operation. Knight’s great-grandparents lived off the land near Naches, and his grandfather started the orchard near where it is today.

Some of the thick-trunked cherry trees on the farm were planted in the 1950s, by his guess. Of his approximately 260 acres, 70 acres are devoted to cherries. Knight also grows pears and apples.

He hasn’t started harvesting his Rainier, Bing and Skeena cherries yet, but will soon.

“It looks like this year it might actually be OK to have cherries – it’s not been every year I can say that,” he said Friday. “I don’t think I got operations cost out of the cherries last year.”

The U.S. Department of Agriculture issued a formal disaster declaration for cherries in 11 Washington counties in 2023 after excessive heat caused economic losses. Cherry growers left as much as 35% of the crop unharvested. A late California harvest season that year added competition and contributed to the losses.

Knight, like many others, didn’t harvest all his 2023 crop due to the market competition with California. He didn’t harvest any Bings.

The 2022 harvest, he said, was tough for different reason – low production due to snowfall on the cherry blossoms in the spring.

“We were lucky if we had 2 ton an acre,” Knight said of 2022.

He’s happy with 5 to 12 tons an acre. Too much and the cherries tend to be smaller and softer, he said.

According to recent USDA data, the cherry harvest in Washington is forecast to be 185,000 tons, down 11% from last year.

Thurlby was updating shipping figures on Friday. As of that afternoon, 480,000 20-pound boxes of cherries had been shipped, bringing the total since the Northwest season started this month to 3.6 million boxes shipped.

It was the largest shipping day of the season, he said. He anticipates around 17 million boxes shipped this season throughout Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Utah and Montana.

Knight walked over to rows of his Rainier cherries and bit one open. They weren’t quite ready. He’s thinking his harvest will start July 1.

“It’s been awhile since I’ve made money on cherries. I’m probably due,” Knight said.

Questen Inghram is a Murrow News Fellow at the Yakima Herald-Republic whose beat focuses on government in Central Washington communities. Email qinghram@yakimaherald.com or call (509) 577-7674.