—story and photos by Ross Courtney

Large, high-quality cherries make a block profitable, even if producing them is expensive.
Training limbs, renewing branches and harvesting all cost money, but doing those things well help growers make money, said several speakers during the cherry session at the Washington State Tree Fruit Association Annual Meeting in December in Yakima.
Several cherry experts, from economists to scientists to growers, discussed the tricky balance between counting pennies and ensuring high-quality, profitable fruit.
Take renewal pruning, for example. It’s tempting to leave in place older laterals that still have cherries, but younger branches produce larger, better fruit.
At Allan Bros. Fruit in Naches, Washington, crews head out before harvest to identify older and weaker limbs and then tie an adjacent 1-year-old replacement shoot to the wire alongside it, grower Dave Allan said. They come back in the winter to remove the old limb.

After harvest, crews also remove large, vigorous limbs that have become nonproductive, at a maximum of one limb per year per tree, to increase light exposure on the lower part of the tree.
Canopy management is not a one-and-done chore, Allan said. It requires an ongoing system of fruiting limb replacement and enough discipline to sustain the effort every year.
“And don’t allow the accounting people to come up screaming and saying, ‘Oh, we can’t spend any money this year,’” he said. “You’ve just got to stay with the program and do it every year.”
Allan and a few of his farm supervisors led a group of about 40 participants on a brief tour through a Sweetheart cherry block just west of Yakima to cap the cherry session at the annual meeting. The trellised two-leader system with lateral fruiting branches trained to the wires is planted on Mazzard rootstock.
They don’t pretend to know everything, Allan said, and they learn more every year. But at least on this six-wire block, Allan wants to remove at least one lateral each year on the lower branches, creating a seven-year cycle. Crews renew faster, on a five-year cycle, along the top two wires, to reduce shading.

Renewal pruning also came up during session presentations.
“We’re getting more and more aggressive with our renewal as we go,” said Keith Oliver, orchard manager for Olsen Bros. Ranches near Benton City. “It’s hard to cut a lot of good cherries out of a tree, but to keep that wood young and productive, we’re trying to push harder and harder.”
Olsen Bros. renews about 20 percent of the fruit limbs from their upright fruiting offshoot, or UFO systems, each year, Oliver said.
Oliver joined growers Norm Gutzwiler and Mike Omeg for a panel discussion on cherry systems and horticultural decisions.
Gutzwiler also reminded growers to renew aggressively to avoid small cherries. “Don’t be afraid to use that chain saw,” he said.
Economics permeated the entire cherry session.
Gutzwiler told growers to factor in all costs — even less obvious ones — and be willing to walk away if they don’t pencil out. To illustrate, he walked through his decision to do just that in 2023 in one of his Sweetheart blocks.
At first glance, it looked as if harvesting the block would cost $8,300 in labor, or 20.6 cents per pound. Then he added Social Security and Labor and Industries payments, along with paying for drivers, bin checkers, diesel and water. And last, he factored in price adjustments growers can face, especially if some fruit is damaged. He had sun scald in 2023.
After picking a sample and running the cherries through a warehouse, he determined his actual cost was 43.29 cents per packed pound, more than double his starting point.
“We decided to walk away from it,” he said. “Looking back, we made the right decision.”
Orchard economics start with the training system. Omeg rated five systems he has farmed — UFO, steep leader, KGB, trellised two-leader and trellised tall spindle axe — on several factors, including how much capital they required. Trellised two-leader and tall spindle were the most expensive up front, he said. The others were average. None were low cost, in his calculations, but he also stressed pruning.
“You really have to have pruning executed at a high level if you’re going to be successful in cherries,” he said.
Washington State University economists Karina Gallardo and Suzette Galinato shared how growers can use their budget tools to determine many of the factors Gutzwiler suggested, as well as the “break even” price — the price a grower needs to receive from their packer to justify growing and picking the crop in the first place.
The budgets are available at: ses.wsu.edu/enterprise_budgets, along with a video illustrating how to use them. •
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