Local fruit growers seem to have survived the latest curve thrown at them by Old Man Winter.
While most farmers and residents reveled in the cooler, wetter weather, last weekend's rains presented a unique problem for local cherry growers. With warm and wet weather, sweet cherry crops can absorb moisture and swell, eventually popping or cracking along the skin as the conditions dry out.But even with the suddenness of the storms, a lot of the orchard owners came prepared. Orem's Morris Ercanbrack and Payson's Howard Riley both rented choppers from Rocky Mountain Helicopters to blow the moisture off the crops, which they said worked rather well.
"We were afraid the sun would come out too early, but the helicopters really dried things out," said Ercanbrack, who owns more than 200 acres between Orem and Genola.
According to Ercanbrack, farmers who couldn't afford the helicopters - and even some of those who could - chemically treated crops to make them more impermeable to the rains.
"It's only the sweet cherries that really absorb water," he said. "They really take to it like a sponge. But the chemicals help."
After the storms ceased Tuesday night, most farmers and their crews were out checking the crops for the cracking damage. Ercanbrack said he had checked with other farmers who hadn't either treated their crops or made similar preparations, and that most said they came through the rains unscathed. Additionally, all the farmers the Deseret News contacted on Wednesday reported little or no damage to their cherries.
Surprisingly, the weather itself seemingly cooperated with the farmers. Tony Hatch, USU Extension Services agent, said that since temperatures never really heated up during the storms, the cherries dried before the sun could damage them.
Hatch said the gradual drying also helped the farmers avoid another rain-related injury, in which the fruit burns on its wet spots.
Already the most developed fruit crops among this year's yields, sweet cherries are the only fruits that suffer the cracking damage. While peaches and other stone fruits can develop molds and funguses from prolonged cool and wet weather, Hatch said the recent wet spell was too brief to cause those infections.
Sweet and tart (or pie) cherries generally gross one-third of the valley's $10 million annual fruit sales. Officials from most area orchards say their cherry crops are well ahead of schedule, and that this year's crop yield could be the heaviest since 1982.
State orchard owners have been hit hard by adverse weather conditions for six years running. Much of Utah's peach and stone-fruit industry was hampered by frost damage that destroyed trees. This year could see the beginning of a recovery from the recent damage, according to Hatch.