Sorting, packing and transporting cherries: Storability & flavour, cooling and transport

Consumers prefer highly coloured fruit. Consequently, retailers require minimum percentages of blush on fruit as delivery standards. Modern stone fruit cultivars are bred to have a high percentage of their surface naturally coloured. However, there can be substantial variability in colouring within the canopy, mostly due to shading—which can be…

It is difficult enough growing cherries while coping with Nature's negative aspects of weather, without the added impact of living with a pandemic.

The following are recommendations to park trees and minimise irrigation:

Sorting, packing and transporting cherries

The aim of parking trees is to sacrifice the crop and apply the minimum amount of irrigation so that trees survive and return to full production the following year.

There are three types of damage to cherries caused by vibration, impact and compression.

Parking trees and post-harvest irrigation cut-off were evaluated in terms of potential water savings and the impacts on current and future production and are discussed here.

The transport of cherries to the packinghouse should take place immediately after harvest and cooled to between 0C and 4C.

Regulated deficit irrigation (RDI) has been established as an effective technique to control vigour and maintain yield, with the added benefit of lower water use, and is also discussed.

Cherries in the orchard: Harvesting

As the cherry season approaches the final few weeks of harvest, it is becoming clear that although some growers in some regions were affected by localized adverse weather conditions, on the whole, nationally, cherry growers have harvested a good crop with few losses.