Friday, July 2, 2021
CapitalPress.com 7
Cherry growers race to harvest
fruit during record heat wave
By SIERRA DAWN MCCLAIN
Capital Press
In a race against nature,
cherry
growers
across
the Northwest are scram-
bling to pick fruit during a
record-breaking heat wave.
Across Washington and
Oregon, crews have been
working night shifts or early
mornings to avoid the heat.
Some growers are leav-
ing large blocks of fruit on
trees to protect work crews
or because the fruit, exposed
to too much heat too quickly,
became overripe.
Growers are moving
500,000 boxes a day, B.J.
Thurlby, president of North-
west Cherry Growers, told
the Associated Press.
“We’re right in the mid-
dle of Bing harvest,” said
Andy Handley, a small-scale
orchardist in East Wenatchee,
Wash. “(The heat) couldn’t
have come at a worse time.”
His region is picking the
last Rainiers, is in the thick
of Bing harvest and has yet
to begin picking later vari-
eties, including Sweethearts
and Skeenas.
According to the National
Weather Service, Wenatchee
has been in triple-digit heat
since June 26: 107 degrees
Capital Press File
The heat wave has forced cherry pickers to work at nights
or the early mornings to avoid high temperatures.
Fahrenheit the 27th, 108 the
28th and 115 projected for
the 29th.
With nights in the 80- to
90-degree range, most cher-
ries have had no opportu-
nity for overnight chilling,
crucial for size development
and fi rmness. The heat has
also hastened sugar devel-
opment, meaning cherries
ripen all at once, compress-
ing the harvest timeline.
“When it gets so hot, the
fruit stops growing. And
then it just starts to cook on
the trees,” said Handley.
In one orchard, Handley
walked away from 40,000
pounds — about 30% of that
orchard’s crop.
Handley, whose crew is
starting at 4:30 a.m. daily, is
also short on labor.
Growers
across
Wenatchee and Yakima say
because California’s cherry
harvest started late, pick-
ing crews have been late to
arrive in Washington.
Kirstjn Eggers, another
small-scale
Wenatchee
grower, is missing half of her
usual crew because many of
her “regulars” are still pick-
ing farther south.
Eggers’ crew the past few
nights has started picking at
7 p.m. and worked until 2 or
4 a.m.
“We’ve had a lot of over-
ripe fruit due to the heat and
shortage of pickers,” she
said.
Some large operations
with more established H-2A
visa worker programs are
faring better.
Teah Smith, entomologist
and ag consultant at Yaki-
ma-based Zirkle Fruit Co.,
said Zirkle has a relatively
strong labor force this sea-
son, with 250 pickers in the
orchards.
The crews, she said, have
been working from about
2 a.m. to 11 a.m.
“I think there will be
some damage from heat,”
she said.
In Oregon, the Dalles
region is also under a tri-
ple-digit heat warning June
26 through July 4.
“We have never experi-
enced these temperatures in
June before,” said Brenda
Thomas, grower and pres-
ident of Orchard View
Farms in the Dalles.
Thomas said she’s pri-
oritizing worker health and
safety, only picking from
5 a.m. to 10 a.m.
High temperatures worry berry growers
By GEORGE PLAVEN
Capital Press
AURORA, Ore. —
Unseasonably hot weather in
Oregon’s Willamette Valley
has berry farmers on edge
ahead of what fi gures to be a
frenetic harvest.
With triple-digit tempera-
tures June 26-28, Bernadine
Strik, extension berry crops
specialist for Oregon State
University, said last week
growers were trying to pick
ripe fruit that could be dam-
aged by the scorching heat.
Berries typically do not
fare well under such condi-
tions, Strik said. Raspberries
and blackberries may dry
out and become sunburned,
making them unmarketable.
The heat can also cause
berries to stick on the plant
during machine harvesting,
resulting in lower effi ciency
and yield.
Blueberries, too, can be
sunburned if not managed
properly, Strik said. How
much crop damage grow-
ers experience remains to be
seen, and may depend on a
variety of factors including
diff erences in berry varieties
and micro-climates.
“As you can imagine,
growers are kind of anx-
ious,” Strik said. “There is
just not much they can do but
wait and see with many of
these crops.”
Strik, who works at the
OSU North Willamette
Research and Extension
George Plaven/Capital Press File
Sprinklers irrigate blueberries on a hot summer after-
noon at Berries Northwest north of Albany, Ore., in the
Willamette Valley.
Center in Aurora, Ore., said a
crew arrived June 24 to begin
hand-picking organic blue-
berries on research plots, and
machine harvesting of black-
berries and raspberries was
to follow.
Certain types of early-rip-
ening blueberries, such as
Duke, are more heat-resis-
tant than later-season culti-
vars, Strik said. However,
researchers have not had much
of a chance to test Duke under
extreme heat.
“Our growers are just
going to do what they can,”
Strik said.
For fresh market blueber-
ries, Strik said most growers
have dual irrigation systems
that include overhead sprin-
klers designed to keep the
plant canopy cool when tem-
peratures rise above 90-95
degrees — a process known as
evaporative cooling.
Strik recommended grow-
ers turn on their evaporative
cooling systems for 20 minutes
every hour when temperatures
hit the 90-95 degree bench-
mark to prevent sunburn.
Most blackberry and rasp-
berry growers, however, do
not have evaporative cooling
systems, Strik said, leaving
them with no way to mitigate
sunburn. Instead, she expects
they will be machine harvest-
ing more frequently to stay
ahead of any potential crop
damage.
Strik also suggested grow-
ers do their machine harvest-
ing either at night or as early
in the morning as possible to
avoid the problem of berries
sticking on the cane.
“That’s the only thing our
growers can really do,” she
said.
Matt Unger, of Unger
Farms, said they are used to
fi ghting summertime heat,
but 100-degree days in June is
“very unusual.”
Unger Farms grows about
140 acres of blackberries,
raspberries, strawberries and
blueberries in Cornelius, Ore.,
23 miles west of Portland. The
fruit is all for fresh market,
sold in New Seasons grocery
stores, local farmers markets
and U-pick.
Harvest is mostly fi nished
for June-bearing strawber-
ries, Unger said. The farm also
grows ever-bearing strawber-
ries, which produce fruit from
late May into November.
Next up, Unger said, is
blueberries. He said last week
crews were to begin arriv-
ing June 24 to pick the fruit,
though with labor shortages he
wondered how quickly they
could get the work done.
“Hopefully, we’ll have
enough pickers show up,” he
said.
In the meantime, Unger
said the farm has sprinkler sys-
tems set up for both blueber-
ries and cane berries, which
they will use to beat the heat.
Capital Press File
Cattle graze in Idaho. USDA is off ering help to some
Idaho ranchers in drought-stricken counties.
Ranchers in drought
stricken central Idaho
qualify for USDA aid
By BRAD CARLSON
Capital Press
USDA
is
making
drought-related emergency
assistance available to live-
stock producers in Ida-
ho’s Blaine and Lincoln
counties.
This is the second con-
secutive low-water year in
much of the central Idaho
mountains.
USDA in late June
announced
cost-share
assistance is available
under the Emergency Con-
servation Program, which
its Farm Service Agency
administers.
Areas
of
extreme
drought, which the U.S.
Drought Monitor labels
D3, qualify. USDA said
in an announcement that
a lack of moisture over an
extended period caused
producers in Blaine and
Lincoln counties to “suf-
fer from the eff ects of
severe drought conditions”
and prompted program
approval.
Sam Bingham, FSA
executive director for
Jerome, Lincoln and Blaine
counties, told Capital Press
that Blaine hit D3 last fall,
late in the 2020 qualifi ca-
tion period, and remains in
that category. Lincoln did
not hit D3 last year and has
not done so in 2021 to date.
He said he included Lin-
coln County in the request
because producers there
are impacted by Blaine
County’s extreme drought
upstream.
The Emergency Con-
servation Program cov-
ers up to 75% of the cost
of permanent mitigation
work and half the cost
of temporary measures.
It is limited to $500,000
per person or legal entity
per natural disaster. Only
farms or ranches that had
adequate livestock water-
ing systems or facilities
before the drought are
eligible.
USDA said there must
be adequate range or pas-
ture residue for livestock
in the area to be served by
a proposed water facility
at the time of the request.
Approved measures for
making more water avail-
able to livestock may
include installing pipelines
or other facilities, build-
ing or deepening wells,
and developing springs or
seeps.
Bingham said 10 to 30
producers applied when
the program was available
locally in past years. Pro-
ducers this year should
contact the local FSA
offi ce promptly because
many applicants and proj-
ect types are expected, he
said.
The offi ce, at 310 W.
Nez Perce Ave. in Jerome,
will accept cost-share
requests from July 1 to
Aug. 15. Producers cannot
start projects before fi ling
a request and getting an
on-site inspection.
Information: 208-944-
3629 or samuel.bing-
ham@usda.gov.
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