Most of our cherry growing regions produced very good crops last season—without those destructive rains that tend to minimize the potential of the crop.
However, some regions experienced days of extreme heat which adversely affected the quality of cherries, and post harvest heat may have caused buds to mutate causing doubling in some susceptible varieties grown in hotter areas.
Season so far
Winter chilling has been a little lower than hoped for, and the warmer conditions during July started to push for an earlier break to dormancy.
Bees
It has been well documented that the mainland bee population has been affected by the lack of normal flowering of our natives. This has left hives in a weakened condition.
Too early to forecast
As the position in regard to the early cherry growing districts becomes clearer, it appears that there will be some good crops of early varieties; after that an outlook becomes less clear. We’ll have to wait a little longer before a sound assessment can be made.
Some days were warmer than normal during blossom and this may have affected the fertilization of some flowers. This in turn will affect fruit set—which might appear to be alright in the early stages, but as the fruitlets begin to grow, some may turn yellow and drop off—a clear indications of poor fertilization.
Shedding might only take place this season if too many fruit have set, which is nature’s way of evening out the crop.
Potentially a good season
There will be good crops of quality cherries in some varieties this season.
We all have to produce fruit of good size and quality in order to obtain the returns needed to support a sustainable future. To do that we have to ask ourselves questions such as:
- Did a variety crop because it was self-fertile?
- Did a variety crop well with lower chill hours?
- Did a variety crop better on one rootstock than another?
Can we survive financially without making changes to our orchards if years like this one occur more frequently?
Answers to these questions, I suggest, will be found in research and development projects that benefit the Australian cherry industry, because I don’t have the answers, do you?
See this article in Tree Fruit, October 2013
