An unexpected Arctic freeze in January killed almost all of this year's Flathead cherry crop. Usually, millions of pounds of the fruit can be harvested each season, but this year, cherry growers in the Flathead Valley are lucky to be able to harvest thousands of pounds.
Brian Campbell is the field representative for Munson Fruit Company. According to him, some parts of this cherry season are turning out to be a wash.
"I hate to say that there's going to be zero cherries, and don't bother trying to come to the Flathead to buy cherries, because there'll be a few stands. It's going to be real minimal."
Elinor Smith: David Erickson of The Missoulian first reported about this season's cherry crop. David, thanks for being here today.
David Erickson: Thank you for having me.
Elinor Smith: Of course.
Can you take us back to the start of the season? How did that first Arctic freeze affect the Flathead's cherry orchards?
David Erickson: Sometime in mid-January, there was an abnormal deep freeze event over western Montana, lasted about a week, maybe more. And one grower told me it got down to as low as 30 degrees below zero, which it usually doesn't on the shore of a lake the size of Flathead Lake, and it just killed the buds on the trees. It didn't kill the trees themselves, but it made it so the buds aren't going to produce fruit this year, and it happened to almost all the trees up and down the lake.
Elinor Smith: How are cherry growers in the Flathead navigating this season?
David Erickson: Yeah, it's a tough loss for a lot of them. Some of them have crop insurance, but one lady told me their crop insurance is pretty minimal, so it'll cover just a bare portion of the cost she's incurred.
And, the Flathead cherries are valuable because they come later in the season than Washington cherries. And so, growers usually are able to get a pretty good price for those cherries and meet consumer demand late July, early August. Unlike those cherries that come earlier in the summer. And so, it's a big hit for the economy in the Flathead.
It also means a lot of loss of income for the hundreds of migrant cherry pickers that come and pick the cherries every year. They plan their season by showing up in Montana in late July and early August and making that income and that just won't happen this year.
Elinor Smith: Okay, so do you know what people are doing to move forward with this season?
David Erickson: Yeah, one grower told me that they're kind of making lemons out of lemonade. They have some frozen product from last year that they're going to be doing some creative stuff with and selling that at the Cherry Festival in Polson. And then a lot of growers are just going to be working on their orchard, doing routine maintenance they didn't, you know, get to in past years. But, a lot of them are just kind of looking ahead and maybe making plans to freeze more in the future in case this happens again.
Elinor Smith: Are people saying we can expect more irregular growing seasons, or, was there a consensus about what we could expect in future years?
David Erickson: You know, one lady told me it was the worst freeze she's seen in 25 years up there. And, you know, climate scientists say that climate change is making extreme weather events more frequent. So yeah, I'm not really sure what people can expect moving forward, but, yeah, yet to be seen.
Elinor Smith: All right. Well, once again, this has been David Erickson from The Missoulian.
David, thank you so much.
David Erickson: All right. Thank you.
Elinor Smith: Of course.
