Early harvest for Flathead Lake cherries

By KYLIE RICHTER

Lake County Leader

The cherries around Flathead Lake will be harvested earlier than usual this year. 

Bruce Johnson, who represents the Flathead Lake Cherry Grower’s Association, said he believes the cherries will be ready in the middle of July, rather than the later part of the month, as usual.

Johnson said he also believe the crop will be a little smaller than last year’s, which totaled around two million pounds. Those cherries come from the 70 members of the association who send their fruit to Monson Fruit Company. 

One orchard that expects to see a smaller harvest is the Kuntz Family Orchard, which lost some of their younger trees in November. Sandra Kuntz said the some of their trees were affected by the freezing cold in November. Some of the newer trees were damaged by the long fall that changed to winter storms, she said.

Johnson said quite a few orchards were affected by the weather last fall. The sudden drop of temperature damaged some of the younger trees that hadn’t hardened out for the winter. Johnson attributed the smaller crop this year to those damaged trees.

With the lack of moisture in May, orchards in the area started irrigating earlier than usual. Johnson said most people don’t usually start irrigating until June. However, he added that the trees weren’t affected by the lack of rain. 

Starting around June 10, orchards will start spraying for two different types of fruit flies. The Flathead pest management area that exists two miles around the shore of the lake requires people to spray for the pests. The first type of fly is normal to the area, but the second, the spotted wing drosophila has only been in Montana for five or six years, according to Johnson. “They are a little bit harder to get rid of,” he said.