Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/418083
www.goodfruit.com GOOD FRUIT GROWER DECEMBER 2014 25 Seaquist is proud of the new cold storage facility, which quickly drops cherry temperatures from 44 degrees in the well water to 35 degrees in the storage. "We have to get the heat out quickly to maintain the firmness we need to pit the cherries," he said. The processing plant has 18 Dunkley pitters, large revolving cylinders with cups with a hole at the bottom that hold individual cherries while needles knock the pits out. The pitted cherries are examined by workers on the packing line, who remove pits that cling to some fruit and cull cherries that were missed on the computerized sorters. Looking ahead For some years, cherry growers and researchers have been talking about ways to improve the industry. There is only one dominant variety, Montmorency, which is highly susceptible to cherry leaf spot and has clear juice. There are few dwarfing rootstocks. Trees need to grow for five to seven years before they are large enough for trunk shakers, and the row spacing needs to be wide to accom- modate the equipment. Seaquist's trees are planted 15 feet apart with 20-foot alleys. Industry goals are to find more varieties, ones that are disease-resistant and spread the harvest system. Redder fruit would help in the juice market, where it also finds its way into wineries and breweries. That's a growing and significant market for the Seaquists. Dwarfing rootstocks would make smaller and more precocious trees, which perhaps could be planted high density in hedgerows. Then, over-the-row harvesting systems like those used for berries could be used. That's being tried in two orchards in Michigan. It wouldn't hurt, either, if some new varieties were less frost sensitive so they could be grown on a wider range of sites, spreading and stabilizing annual production. "We're trying to go to higher density, but still use existing equipment," Seaquist said. "We plant 145 trees per acre, more than the 121 we used until 2006, but that's about as tight as we can get." As a leader in the industry, Seaquist is involved in solving problems beyond his orchards. "The market has stayed stagnant," he said. "We used to export 50 million pounds to Europe, but Poland has planted more cherries and exports are now small. "The bakery and pie-filling business has been reduced. But growth in the market for dried fruit, nutraceuticals, and juice has been really, really positive. The news has been nothing but good about the health benefits of cher- ries, and we're having a really good run promoting that." The industry was hurt by the freezes of 2012—"right after we'd managed finally to sell out a burdensome inventory," Seaquist said. "It was a big blow and we're trying to rebuild." That year, Polish and Turkish cher- ries invaded the U.S. market, capitalizing on what U.S. growers had built. Last year's big crop put U.S. growers back into the market. And a nice crop this year, estimated at 271 mil- lion pounds, was considered just a bit too big. The CIAB, of which Seaquist is a member, voted to restrict market sales by 10 percent. • Mechanization continues through the cooling pads and cold storages, to the pitters and the packing process. The pitted product is scanned by human eyes as it heads toward packing.