Michigan Cherry Farmers Struggle as Weather Disrupts Harvest

Cherry season is past its halfway point in Northern Michigan, but farmers are facing lower yields after a string of unfavorable weather events.

Image: Cherries | MI AG Council

Many local farms report that while tart cherry quality remains strong, overall production is down.

John Lyon of Island View Orchards painted a mixed picture of the harvest: “We’ve got one orchard, there’s hardly a cherry in it. To the one here, you can see there’s about a half a crop on this tree. You may think it’s a full crop, but it’s about a half a crop. And then a tree next to me on my left, which you can’t see, has got very few cherries on it. I’d say it’s got about a 10% crop.”

A cold snap in the spring, particularly in Leelanau County, dealt a major blow to the crop.

“April 29th into the 30th those cold temperatures coupled with some wind I think that really reduced the crop here at the research station,” said Nikki Rothwell of the Northwest Michigan Horticultural Research Center. “But also across Northwest Michigan and then the other thing that we’ve had is two hail events. So we were just out in an orchard just probably 20 minutes ago and I can see hail damage on our fruit.”

Still, farmers are pushing forward with the harvest, using mechanical shakers to cover more ground in less time.

“This year we had a pretty average year, temperature wise, except for that extremely cold early May,” Lyon said. “So our start was a little delayed because of the cool spring, but we’re quickly catching up. And the reason we’re catching up is because there’s so little fruit, we can go through our orchard so quickly.”

Despite the shortfall, Lyon expects to break even thanks to a sharp rise in tart cherry prices. “The price is amazingly, went from 18 to 20 cents last year to 72 cents, where we’re taking our cherry, 72 cents this year. So even though we’re down by two thirds, the price is more than tripled. So we will do as well as last year, in terms of the revenues coming in,” he said.