Cherry growers share perspective on this year’s market

HOOD RIVER — Brad Fowler and his wife, Kathryn, own Hood River Cherry Company in the Hood River Valley. 

“We have our own packing house, pack our family’s cherries and do all our own marketing — and have been doing this for 30 years.  My wife is in charge of all Hood River Cherry Company sales and marketing.  Her 30 years’ experience is crucial to our continued success,” Fowler said.

“We are passionate about cherries; our whole life revolves around them in one way or another. In Hood River we have a cooler climate so our cherries have a little bit later season than everyone else. We don’t begin picking until after The Dalles' cherries are done, and most of the other cherry businesses are all picked. Ours ripen about July 15 and go until about Aug. 20 or 25,” he said.

“We grows all the late-season varieties, including Lapin, Sweetheart, Regina and a few others. We have mostly Lapins; that cherry does really well in the Hood River Valley in the somewhat cooler climate. The Lapins are our signature crop,” Fowler said.

“All our cherries are marketed fresh; there’s nothing better to eat than a good tree-ripened cherry,” Fowler added. “Our cherries go all over the U.S. including New York and Boston. They have to arrive quickly — picked one day, packed the next, and on a truck the next.”

A significant volume of Fowler’s cherries go overseas, to Japan and a few other countries.  

“There are two other packing houses in our area that are enormous, compared to us, but they are in The Dalles area. One is just across the river, in Washington. We are a specialty producer, growing high-end cherries for high-end customers who want really good cherries,” he said.

It’s a tough business because the weather isn’t always cooperative; Mother Nature sometimes throws a curve ball. “This year we had a serious cold spell in mid-January with record-breaking cold that swooped down out of Canada, and it played havoc with the cherry industry,” Fowler said. “There was some significant damage from that event.”

The cherries in his area were just beginning to bud when this story was written, getting ready to bloom. “There are significant acreage of cherries in Canada, and cold snap affected some of them too,” he said. We’ll soon know how big a bite was taken out of the Northwest cherry crop.”

Immediately after the freeze, Fowler started cutting bouquet samples from their trees, putting them in warm spaces to see if the buds would push ahead and blossom. “We’ve been doing that all winter, monitoring all our varieties in all of our orchards. We cut branches and put them in a warm place so we can see how they do. Our temperatures here were as cold as anybody around us, but for some reason we didn’t get as much damage as they did up north of us,” said Fowler.

“Maybe the wind was different, or maybe it was because we had some cool temperatures just prior to that severe drop,” he said. This may have helped the trees adapt and survive. All tree fruit is as winter hardy as the temperature just before that kind of event, helping them be better prepared to handle it.

“You have to be a gambler in this business. Cherry farmers don’t need to go to Las Vegas; they get all their gambling ‘fix’ at home! We are hoping we’ll have a good crop this year,” he said. 

“It looks like it won’t be a bumper crop, but pollination will happen here in late April and early May and that’s a critical time. It doesn’t look like there’s an excessive number of buds on the trees, which is actually a good thing. Huge bumper crops are not good for anybody because the price goes down and quality is harder to maintain. They have to be picked and packed in a hurry.” 

Maximum isn’t always optimum. Fowler prefers to have an “average” crop because that way the customers will get a more orderly and consistent product, and better eating quality.

“When there’s a huge crop and cherries are cheap, and the market is down, it’s not good for the growers, and it’s not good for the packers, and it’s not good for the consumers. Cherries are smaller and softer, with not as much flavor,” he explains.

Last year was a disaster for cherry growers in the Hood River area because the California cherry crop was two or three weeks late, and ran into the other crops’ timing. “This had never happened before. California cherry marketing collided with that of the Northwest; it all came at once, and the market after the Fourth of July went to zero. The fruit all showed up at the same time.  The market is always a matter of supply and demand,” said Fowler.

“Hope springs eternal, however, and every year we hope it will be better than the year before. I am fairly confident that this year will be okay, if we don’t have a bad weather event; I feel that the market will be more stable this year,” he said.

There is another generation coming on, to take over this orchard. “All our kids are cherry growers and have their own orchards. My wife and I are slowly turning over more control to our kids and they are very qualified. Two of them were crop consultants for tree fruits for many years,” Fowler said.

“I think Hood River Cherry Company is positioned pretty well, to continue for the long term, with family. It’s harder for these small companies to compete with big ag, but family business are maybe the best hope for the future, in the long run.  I have to give our kids credit for what they are doing. Their passion for what we do is just as big as ours — my wife and I,” he said.

Parker Orchards is another family business near Hood River. John Packer and his parents grow several kinds of fruit including peaches, nectarines, plums, apples, pears, cherries and pie cherries. 

“We have 30 acres in cherries, including Lapin, Regina and Sweethearts. Here in Hood River we aim for the later season because these late-season cherries generally bring more money,” Packer said. Some of their fresh fruit is sold at the farm, but most of the cherries go to packing houses for commercial markets and are sold in grocery stores.

The cold spell in January didn’t seem to damage the cherries at the Packer farm. “From what I have seen so far, in the buds this spring, it looks to be a good crop, and not much has died. In Canada, however, and northern Washington, there was more damage.  Orchards around Wenatchee, Washington lost about 90% of their cherry crop. Just north of there, in Canada, they had temperatures down to 25 below zero and they’re going to lose about 90% of their cherry trees, and not just this year’s crop,” he said.

“Peaches in our orchard have been affected more than the cherries; there are fewer buds on the peaches. We grow a lot of our cherries on rootstock called Mazzard and it is a cold-hardy rootstock. This is what most of the cherry blocks are, around here."

There are certain varieties their orchard doesn’t grow because of how much rain this region gets. “Some cherry varieties are more susceptible to diseases because of all the moisture. The trees may get a pseudomonas bacterial infection that creates a goo on the tree and ends up killing it,” he explains.

Pseudomonas syringae are gram-negative bacteria that live on plant surfaces, and can be spread by splashing rain. This harmful disease is more prevalent when there’s a lot of moisture and low temperatures in the spring, and seems to be worse in low or sandy spots in an orchard. Vigorous older trees are less susceptible, while young trees two to eight years old, are most affected.

“Our cherries this spring, however, look good so far and we are hoping they will bring a good price this year. It’s been a challenging and different game in the cherry industry lately, because there are so many cherries now in Washington and California,” Packer said.

“Last year, we didn’t pick any of our cherries because of the low prices, and we had a huge crop. We probably left the equivalent of 500 cherry bins hanging on the trees. Many farmers who did pick their cherries ended up having to pay the packing house, because the cherries didn’t make any money. We just left ours hanging on the trees, and they dropped,” he said.

Last year some growers broke even, making about what it cost to pick. “You go to all that effort to pick them and are not making any money. It’s better to not put the work into it, and it’s sad to let that many hang on the trees,” Packer said.

His family is hoping that this year will help make up for last year. 

“This is how it works in the cherry industry. You might have a bad year one year and the next year make pretty good money,” he said.