I ended my last post with a wish that it would rain.\u00a0 And for good reason.\u00a0 We were getting dry here, with a spring that was several inches shy of normal rainfall.\u00a0 Those berries that weren’t irrigated were starting to show signs of stress, and the ponds were starting to get low already from the berries that were irrigated.<\/p>\n
And then it rained.\u00a0 And rained some more.\u00a0 And as I’m writing it is still pouring.\u00a0 Over 3″ of rain here in the last 4 days.\u00a0 Which normally wouldn’t be a problem, except that we’re heading into the one and only\u00a0crop that really hates rain:\u00a0 cherries.<\/p>\n
Cherry trees grow well in our climate; you can find wild versions in most of the woods around here.\u00a0 Commerial cherries have been bred for beautiful size and taste, but they don’t have much tolerance for rain.\u00a0 As a cherry begins to ripen, it becomes highly vulnerable to splitting if exposed to too much moisture.\u00a0 It literally rips apart with a gash down the middle of the fruit.<\/p>\n
This is one reason that the Pacific Northwest is such a good place to grow cherries, because several hundred miles from the Pacific, there is very little rainfall, and they have access to huge reserves of publically funded waterworks from which to draw irrigation water in just the quantities needed to keep the trees growing.\u00a0 Around here, we rely a little more on mother nature, and she isn’t always very reliable.<\/p>\n
One option is to erect “high tunnels” which are essentially inexpensive greenhouses over the cherries.\u00a0 This keeps excess rain off the trees and helps control against birds.\u00a0 Inexpensive is a relative term here.\u00a0 It involves many thousands of dollars and makes some chores that involve tractor work more difficult.\u00a0 Still, some growers in Adams County are trying it.\u00a0 This might be the year those tunnels pay off for them.<\/p>\n
We’ll see.\u00a0 Most of our cherries are still just beginning to turn color, so maybe the rain is early enough for them.\u00a0 If they don’t split, don’t rot, and the crows don’t get them, it will be a very nice crop.\u00a0 Stay tuned!<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I ended my last post with a wish that it would rain.\u00a0 And for good reason.\u00a0 We were getting dry here, with a spring that was several inches shy of normal rainfall.\u00a0 Those berries that weren’t irrigated were starting to show signs of stress, and the ponds were starting to get low already from the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shaworchards.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shaworchards.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shaworchards.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shaworchards.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shaworchards.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=63"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.shaworchards.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64,"href":"http:\/\/www.shaworchards.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63\/revisions\/64"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shaworchards.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=63"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shaworchards.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=63"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shaworchards.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=63"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}