When talking about the different issues to take note of with cherries to help spread pathogen growth in the bag on social media, I started up a conversation with a cherry grower, Max Copello, which turned out to be highly informative, so I wanted to share some of that conversation with you. The cherry splitting examples that he experienced as a grower are both unreal and devastating at the same time.
Below is how the weather damaged the 2019 California cherry crop, from a grower’s perspective. For us, as the consumer, it affects the cherry supply and the price, but for the grower, they have been working all year to harvest this crop.
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Introduction to Max Copello
Max Copello is a cherry grower, that is involved with multiple growing operations, including Copello Farms, Rollin’ Ranch LLC, and J&R Farms. Among those, Copello is involved with growing cherries, walnuts, almonds and wine grapes in Linden, California, which is located in the northern part of the Central Valley. The main cherry that he grows is the ‘Bing’ variety, which was hit hard with the recent rain and hail events.
Below, you can see Max Copello, his wife, Jenny, and his son, Luca.
Which Part of the Cherry Crop was Affected?
When the rains hit, some of Copello’s Bing crop suffered a great amount of damage, with those cherries that were the most mature being hit the hardest because their skin is more susceptible to absorbing water from the rain. While the cherries that were the least mature at the time of the weather events, have a greater chance of being able to make it to the market.
The crop is separated between earlier and later varieties, based on when the cherries will be ready to hit the market. The current loss estimates for Copello are 40-70% of the early variety fruit and 10-30% for the later varieties. For the later varieties, it is also dependent on the weather for the rest of the season.
I have included some photos from Copello below that demonstrates some of the damage that they are facing.
How to Decide Whether to Pick or Not?
If it is not commercially viable for the grower to pick the cherries for the market, they will not harvest them. It is important to remember all of the costs that go into the actual harvesting process, and to pay all of the harvesting workers. Also, with crop insurance, which most growers have to protect in the case of rain and hail damage, they consider it a total loss when 50% of the crop has been damaged.
Two ways to determine this percentage are:
- Packout Weight
- Insurance Adjuster
Packout Weight
The packout weight is determined based on the amount of cherries that are harvested versus the amount of cherries that can be packed for the primary market (e.g., grocery store). This can be determined once the product reaches the packinghouse, but the idea is to have this calculated before the product reaches the packinghouse because if the packout percentage is below 50%, it is no longer commercially viable for the cherry grower.
So, what the grower will do is send a harvested sample from the field to the packinghouse before sampling the entire field to see what the packout percentage will be. In this case, the packout percentage is calculated based on any issues with the cherries, regardless of whether the damage was caused by the recent weather events or not. Some other examples of damage (or what is considered as quality that is not good enough for the primary market) are: double cherries, pitting, bruising, cracking, bird pecks, etc.
Insurance Adjuster
Another way to determine whether the crop is worth harvesting is by having an insurance adjuster come out and estimate the damage by sampling each field. According to Copello, this is the most common method of determining whether to harvest or not under these conditions.
How to Get the Cherries Off of the Tree if They Are Not Getting Harvested?
Due to the high load of cherries that were produced this season (2018 was a smaller crop and the weather was optimal this year for fruit production), the cherries have to be removed from the trees (to prevent any long term damage or death to the trees), whether they are harvested to be sent to the market or not. This means that even when it does not make sense financially to harvest a field, the cherry growers still need to find a way to remove the cherries from the trees.
Some ideas that Copello is exploring to help with this are using nut tree shaking machines (like what you saw during the almond harvesting process), mimicking this process with rubber mallets hitting the trees or knocking fruit off with long poles. They will have to wait and see what the actual damage to their crop looks like and which method is the most effective before deciding on this.
I asked about the U-pick scenario (where people from the public are allowed in to pick the product), and Copello said that there was too big of a liability issue doing that.
Another thing to consider is that even if the fruit is not harvested for the market, it could still be put to use. One option is for the fruit to go into the dried cherry market.
What About the Crop Insurance Payout?
Based on the determination by the insurance company, growers will either not pick the early cherry varieties (based on the damage) or will not pick any cherries at all. Copello made it a point to say that all growers want to pick the cherries that they have worked all year to grow, but that it is not always an option for them.
The big question for me is whether crop insurance covers the damaged crop that cannot be sold because, yes, it is sad that the consumers will have less supply and will have to pay a higher price for cherries, but it is important to acknowledge how the damage that was caused affects the growers. According to Copello, “Insurance is based of historical averages for each orchard. The amount is based off the amount of your loss, whether it’s either a total loss or a partial loss. It does not necessarily cover all of the costs but it gets you close to breaking even.”
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