GILROY
– All farmers can do now is wait and see.
Cherries are red, ripe and ready to go. But the early morning
.22 inches of rain Friday was a growers’ worst fear.
GILROY – All farmers can do now is wait and see.
Cherries are red, ripe and ready to go. But the early morning .22 inches of rain Friday was a growers’ worst fear.
“We’ve had almost perfect weather coming into today,” said Jeff Stokes, vice president of sales for Christopher Ranch, Friday. Christopher Ranch will harvest about 50 acres of bing cherries.
The weather has been mild for the past few weeks, without the excessive heat and rain that can do the most damage to cherries.
And growers were entering the home stretch.
Bob Filice, owner of Bob Filice Farms, is about a third of the way through picking his 45-acre orchard on Pacheco Pass. When the rain began to fall, the cherry grower of more than 20 years knew exactly what to do. First, he waited it out and then sprung into action.
“I was out there immediately when it stopped raining,” Filice said. “Timing is of importance.”
Filice used a sprayer to blow the water droplets off the cherries to prevent splitting. The moisture causes the ripe cherries to crack because they can’t expand to absorb all of the water.
Filice’s efforts appeared to pay off, he said. By noon, workers were busy picking bing cherries again.
“Right now, I’m happy as long as these clouds go away and the sun comes out now,” Filice said.
Similar to Filice, Andy’s Orchard in Morgan Hill used a sprayer to save some of its cherries, while other growers decided against taking such precautions.
“I did see some cherries that a field man came in with from another orchard, and they did have some cracks,” Filice said.
Lorene Scott, store manager of Andy’s Orchard’s Country Store, expected to lose some of the fruit due to cracking despite their efforts.
“It’s not going to affect the quality of the fruit we sell,” she said. “We’ll do more sorting due to cracks.”
Andy’s Orchard grows a variety of cherries and sells them at its specialty store on Half Road. Most farmers grow bing or rainiers in South Santa Clara Valley, said Jenny Midtgaard Derry, executive director of the Santa Clara County Farm Bureau.
Going into the harvest, farmers knew the size of this year’s crop was going to be below normal. The ideal temperatures for cherry growers are very cold winters, so the trees go dormant for a few months, and a normal spring with light wind to aid in pollination. Scott said her cherries received the proper chill time this year, but temperatures into the 90s in mid March wreaked havoc with the pollination.
“The heat wave was right during blossom season,” said Greg Van Wassenhove, Santa Clara County agriculture commissioner. “You want the blossom period to be fair weather so that you get good pollination.”
The early heat also may have sped up the harvest by about 10 days this year. The harvest began as early as two weeks ago for most growers and will continue through mid-June. Usually the cherry season runs the month of June, Filice said.
“I always tell people to get them when you see them because they’re not going to be around forever,” Derry said. “It’s a pretty short season.”
And the fruit promises to taste good this year. Because of the lower volume, the cherries are a bit bigger than normal.
“The lighter the crop, the bigger the fruit,” Filice said.
Derry already sampled some of this season’s cherries.
“They’re really dark and full and sweet,” she said.
After the local growing season concludes, supplies will be coming from the Northwest.
Rain is expected again next Friday, according the National Weather Service in Monterey. But before it does, temperatures are supposed to rise into the low-80s this week.
“The good news is that the wind is up, and it’s not that hot,” Van Wassenhove said. “And we’ll probably get through this with minor damage.”
Ultimately, Stokes said he won’t know how the rain affected the quality of the fruit until it’s packaged today.
“That’s when you get a good look at it,” Stokes said.
