April freeze following an unseasonably warm March killed the blossoms.
Stores in the heart of the nation’s biggest tart cherry producing region can’t get enough tart cherries from local orchards because 97 percent of Michigan’s crop was destroyed this year by a “freak weather pattern,” says this article on Yahoo.com.
An unseasonably warm March that caused trees to bud was followed by an April freeze that killed the blossoms.
Trees in New York and Wisconsin, which have smaller but still significant tart cherry harvests, suffered the same weather damage.
Companies such as Cherry Republic in Glen Arbor, Michigan, have raised the prices on a 1-pound bag of dried cherries from $14.50 to $18.95, and chocolate-covered cherries went from $13.95 to $16.95.
Jamie Roster, the owner of the Cherry Stop in Traverse City, Michigan raised her price for dried cherries from $10 per pound to $15.95.
“Since we’ve owned the business for the past seven years, prices have maybe gone up $1 per pound. So a $6 increase over one month is pretty phenomenal,” said Roster
See entire article:
http://weather.yahoo.com/tart-cherry-crop-midwest-destroyed-070931700.html
Thanks to John Reno for this link
5 Responses to 97 percent of Michigan tart cherry crop destroyed
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even though the usda’s own reserach proved tart cherries help relieve arthritis symptoms, the growers cant say that..
but I can:-)
I hear fellow arthritics in usa groaning as a write.
actually I know you would think those prices high.
try we pay clser to 30AU for decent dried apricots etc over here, normally. We have a Huge issue with cruddy turkish apricot being substituted for our much tastier aussie ones, while they still slug us for Agrade aus prices.
now watch china do a deal…and move in on your sales..
make sure you do know country of origin and support the poor farmer folks at home
Me included. I put three teaspoons of tart cherry juice concentrate on my cereal each morning instead of sugar.
Yesterday I heard a news report report that corn futures have shot up sparking fears of a world wide corn shortage.
Northern Poland hit by tornado (July 15th, 2012) /
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_type=videos&search_query=Tornado+Poland&search_sort=video_date_uploaded&uni=3
April freeze is normal, the March heat wave was definitely not, we typically get a warm day in March where it gets to 70F, but we exceeded 80F for several days, and this was just about 2 weeks after a massive snow storm that dumped 18″ of wet heavy snow over northern Michigan and toppled many trees and cut power for several days.