As for the stronger Spanish export cherries, it was thought that exports would start early this season but that is not looking like the case any more for any volume.
"The commercial Spanish export season should start around the 15th May, with smaller amounts of new varieties such as Nimba, Red Pacific, Frisco & Rocket before then," according to Jon Clark from Total Cherry. "The lack of volumes of the early varieties will make a difficult start to the season for the Spanish growers as these are the ones which they would usually make good prices on, but as a whole the main season should be normal. There should be reasonable volumes and quality."
In the UK market place at the moment there is a combination of glasshouse cherries from Spain in limited volumes and the first outdoor Californian crop which, contrary to expectation, is two weeks later than it looked to be due to very heavy rain and some hail which damaged the early varieties, packhouse grade-outs from the orchards are said to be quite poor at the moment due to the damage.
"Normally we would say that the 'official' summer season begins on the 5th May and we won't be far off that," said Jon. "As for the UK crop the weather has been very mixed with lots of unseasonal snow in places last week. The winter was not as cold as normal, with a lack of low temperatures, but there have been quite a few days with temperatures down to 5°C and below, which is what we ideally need for cherries. The weather made a lot of people think the season might be early, however, that did not happen. Flowering did not start until around 10 days after what you would expect in a 'normal' season. So we are at around 40% flowering at the moment which puts us a week later than last year, by the end of this week we should be in full flowering."
There have not been any devastating frosts so far, just unseasonally cold weather but that is not the main problem according to Jon, "The heavy bursts of rain are more concerning as they can damage the pollen in the flower. These next two weeks are critical."
Most of the cherries in England can be covered but growers tend to wait until the crop is set and green fruit forming before covering with the tunnels. "Pollination works better when the tunnels are open and there is the danger that it can get too hot in the tunnels. So they tend to pull the covers on later," explains Jon.
"All in all it is a critical time now, we will see in the next three weeks how the fruit set has been, but it is looking promising at the moment. This year there are also a lot of new plantings which will come into commercial volumes, the UK crop is estimated at around 5500 tonnes which is up over 20% on last year."
Once the fruit is set the next critical time is the fruit drop in early June. The UK season would normally start with early varieties around early-mid June, but this year it is more likely to be the 3rd week of June and will reach its peak towards the end of July.
After the UK season, the supply of fruit to the UK market comes from Washington State USA (ocean freight) and Canada. However, both of these regions are in line to have an early season this year, which coupled with the Northern European potential for a late season, could present less opportunity for these traditional sources.
For more information:
Jon ClarkTotal Worldfresh
Tel: +44 1775 717180
Skype: jon.c.clark
Email: jon.clark@totalcherry.co.uk