Convened by Dr. Stefano Musacchi, WSU hosted the International Society for Horticultural Science (ISHS) XII Orchard Systems Symposium in July 2021. The symposium was virtual so Stefano and TJ Mullinax from the Good Fruit Grower filmed orchard visits where Stefano and producers provided industry overviews and discussed orchard systems and production strategies. The cherry video is a tour of several blocks with Cherry King, Kyle Mathison. Thank you to all the hosts. The videos were produced by the Good Fruit Grower Magazine.
Text Transcript and Description of Visuals
| Audio | Visual |
|---|---|
| We are here again with Ines speaking on cherry today. Ines, can you address the importance of the cherry industry in the Pacific Northwest? | Ines and Stephano stand, facing each other, in the row of an orchard. Text appears showing their names, Stephano Musacchi and Ines Hanrahan, as well as their location, Naches Valley, Washington. |
| Yes, just like the apple industry, our cherry industry reaches from the Canadian border all the way to the Oregon border. So we have a lot of cherry acreage. It’s a little bit less than the apples. It’s about 43,000 acres and that translates to about 17,000 hectares. | |
| The production volume is approximately worth a billion dollars, so that’s worth a lot of money. We grow typically about 20 million 20 pound boxes in the Pacific Northwest region. Washington is the major production area, but there’s also production in Oregon, Montana, Idaho, and Utah. | A slow, scanning drone camera shot shows a row of trellised cherry trees containing many ripe cherries. |
| Perfect, and what about the varieties, because there are a lot of varieties. Which are the ones that are the core of our industry? | The camera shot zooms out to show a vast cherry orchard on the side of a steep hill. |
| Sure, most of our production is what you would call dark sweet cherries. What is very special about our industry, is that we actually start cherry harvest about the last week of May and then we can harvest cherries all the way into September. And that is because we have different elevations we can work, with from 400 feet elevation all the way to 2200 feet elevation. | |
| So we have a very long cherry season compared to other regions in the world. Our main dark sweet varieties are, of course, our ‘Bing’ but we also have an earlier variety called ‘Chelan’, and then we have some later ones: ‘Lapins’, ‘Skeena’, and ‘Sweetheart’. | The camera view switches back to Ines and Stephano standing in the orchard row. |
| This is perfect, and what about the rootstocks that the industry is adopting? | |
| Yes, so just like the rest of the world the gold standard is actually the ‘Mazzard’ rootstock. Some farms produce, or like to produce trees and use trees on ‘Mahaleb’ rootstocks. We also have some farmers that have moved to more intense plantings using ‘Gisela’ series, especially ‘Gisela 6’ and also some of the ‘Krymsk’ rootstocks are utilized. | An aerial drone shot scans the orchard rows. |
| Thanks a lot. | The camera view switches back to Ines and Stephano standing in the orchard row. |
| You are welcome. | |
| Good morning everybody. Today we are at the Wenatchee Heights. | A wide drone camera shot shows a large cherry orchard in the foreground, with other orchards and steep hills visible in the background. |
| We are with Kyle Mathison. He is a cherry grower and is the president of the Kyle Mathison orchard and the vice president of the research and development department in Stemilt. He’s also been named King Cherry of 2008. So he’s a really an expert of cherry, and we are here to visit your farm that is a very famous because it’s got different elevation, correct? Can you tell us, what is the division among the different crops? So, how many acres you run, and how many kinds of apple, pear, and cherry you run? | Stephano and Kyle stand facing each other at the edge of an orchard. Steep hills and a river are visible in the background. Text appears showing the name of the interviewee, Kyle Mathison, as well as the location, Wenatchee Heights, Washington. |
| Yeah, you know, I’ve got enough acres to scratch a living. I never want to say how many acres, because I think it’s the wrong perception. | |
| Okay, say a percentage. | |
| Yeah, so I’m 80 percent cherries, 15 percent apples, and 5 percent pears. So we’ve been farming here since 1893 when my great-grandfather homesteaded here. So we have, for over 100 years, been scratching this dirt, trying to make a living on this hill. What we found is the cherries were the ones that did the best and so we kept planting more cherries. | The camera view widens slightly, showing more of the landscape behind Stephano and Kyle. |
| Right now we’re at around 1500 foot elevation. My lower elevation, the river down there, is at 600 foot, and we’re 900 foot above the Columbia River. | Kyle gestures towards the river in the background. |
| And here we can look at the cherries that we have hanging on the trees. | Stephano and Kyle walk to the left towards a cherry tree. |
| This here is a black pearl variety, which is kind of an early variety. | Kyle holds up the limb of the tree to show dark red cherries growing in clusters. |
| We had sweethearts at this elevation, but the average return was about 50 cents a pound for four years in a row, and we were going broke. So I decided, well I’m going to graft them over to something else. | The camera zooms in closer on Kyle holding the cherry cluster. |
| I have to say, grafted is a patchwork. You don’t really want to graft unless you don’t have the cash, and when we’re getting 50 cents a pound, I didn’t have any money. | The camera zooms in to a close up shot of the cherries growing on the tree. |
| But at the same time, I wanted to see what the ‘Black Pearls’ would do at this elevation. So we grafted them over and we’ll have an open center tree, multi-leader. I have to say, this is kind of a patchwork thing, because at that time in the business it was a tough couple years when we were getting such slow money for the cherries. | The camera zooms out to show Kyle and Stephano standing beside the tree. |
| You mentioned multi-leader, so is that the main training system that you are using in your company? | |
| That’s right. We used to have a four-leader system, now I’m going to a two liter system. And we can show that as we get into the young trees, that we’re trying to get more trees per acre. So these trees are about 216 trees an acre, and now we’re wanting to plant, more or less, around five to six hundred trees an acre, okay? So we’re three times closer and I have to say, as we go higher elevation, the tree naturally is a smaller tree, and at the lower elevation, it’s a much bigger tree. I have to say, it’s easy to grow cherries at this elevation, but once you get above 3000 feet it is hard. | The camera zooms out to show the entirety of the tree, which is trained on a two-leader system. |
| We’re learning about that. It’s kind of a lot more climate differences, and clay soils, and difficulty too, but that’s where we can grow cherries where the market’s good. At this elevation, 1500 foot, the market is usually flooded. That’s the top of Babcock Ridge, Dufur, Brewster Heights. A lot of ‘Lapins’ are planted up in Brewster. And so right now, these cherries, when they were ‘Sweethearts’, came out the last couple weeks in July. So we decided, well that doesn’t work. So we decided we’re gonna put an early variety and pick them before the Fourth of July. So today is the 24th and we’re going to start picking here tomorrow morning. | The camera zooms back in to show just Kyle and Stephano. |
| This is great, and this brings us to the next question about rootstocks. So which rootstock do you feel is the most important to grow tree in such high elevation? | |
| Well, I have to say, elevation is the key. So we had a lot of ‘Krymsk’ five and six, but we’ve had a lot of winter damage at that higher elevation. We find because the growing season is so short and the heavy soils are so heavy–cation exchange capacity of 32 clay soils–that we’ve gone to the most vigorous rootstock of the ‘Mazzard’. So we found that, at the higher elevations, it’s more important to have more horsepower in that rootstock because the trees just don’t have much of a chance to grow for very long, because the growing season’s so short. At lower elevations, I think I’m going to keep going with ‘Gisela 12’ and probably I like ‘Krymsk 5’. In the virus, you have to have clean wood, but those are my choices. | The camera pans to show more of the cherry orchard beside Stephano and Kyle. |
| That’s because there’s a lot of horsepower, a lot of heat units, but where you don’t have those, you have to have the more horsepower. | The camera zooms back in to show just Kyle and Stephano. |
| Thank you, and you produce organic also. So what is the percentage of your cherries that are growing organic? | |
| Well right now I’m looking at 20 percent organic. I’ll probably go another 40 acres this coming year. The organic thing is difficult because we want to match demand with supply. Six years ago, I had way more organic, but I didn’t receive the money because we had over supply, and we had to sell them conventional. The retail is changing. Before the retailer didn’t want to carry two skews, an organic and a conventional. So now we’re putting the organic and the clamshells their own PLU, and we’re trying to get the retailers to take to it. But it’s where they take too organic of conventional and organic apple, it’s not necessarily the case with cherries. So it seems like, as we’re growing the market, we’re going to grow more organic. So our 20 percent will probably go 25 percent, but as you get higher elevation, it’s even more difficult. So those organic cherries will be planted below 3000 foot elevation. | |
| So we are in a new orchard. So, what is the idea general idea about the new orchard? What is the planting distance between the row and which kind of rootstock and variety you are using, Kyle? | A wide drone camera shot shows a large cherry orchard in the foreground, with other orchards and steep hills visible in the background. |
| So we’re using ‘Mazzard’ rootstock at 7 by 14 planting, and we’re using a bi-ax tree. We try to start with a bi-ax tree that’s at least six and a half to seven foot high to start with. Then the second, the first leaf, or we want to grow another six foot. So I want a tree that, at the end of the first leaf, is at least 12 foot high. | Stephano and Kyle stand beside a cherry tree in an orchard row. Kyle stands with his hand on the wire trellis. |
| Then from there I start pulling down the branches with the twine and the string to get the laterals. And we pull this down, but they won’t have fruit until next year. So this is a third leaf tree, and you can see we’ve pretty much got eighty percent of the space filled, and we’re gonna in the fourth leaf. I hope to have production that’s going to be economic, and we’re going to start paying the costs back for the planning. | Kyle puts his hand on a branch which has been tied downwards with twine to be parallel with the ground. |
| So what is the variety in this case? | |
| This one here is ‘Staccato’. We’re at 2450 foot elevation, and it usually will come off the second or third week in August. | |
| So I see that you’ve got a kind of inclination of the orientation of the true leader. So what is the rationale behind the orientation of the leaders? | Stephano gestures towards the tied leader at the front of the tree. |
| The idea is to have the one leader to block the sun from one o’clock to about four o’clock. So the leader is kind of helping you keep the tree shaded. We want morning light to come into it in the morning in the V, but then we want it to be shaded in the afternoon. So that’s why we orientate the tree. So it would be like two o’clock or three o’clock from the north or the south direction. | The camera zooms in on Kyle who stands near the center of the tree canopy. He gestures to the tree. |
| Yeah, but here, what is the orientation? | The camera shot changes back to Stephano and Kyle standing beside the tree. Stephano points to the tree. |
| This here isn’t north south, but it doesn’t matter. We had to do it this way because of the slope, but we still kind of orientate that leader to be that. I say, from two to four o’clock is the hottest part of the season, and the hottest part of the day, and that’s where we want that leader to shade. The eastern light, we want to get into the center of the tree. | |
| And this is a really good point, because you have to deal with the topography of your orchard, and sometimes you got a forced direction already in the orchard. | |
| If we can plant everything north and south, we would, but here we have a lot of hills and valleys, and you can’t do that. We do what we can. | |
| Great, so what is the idea or feel that you are envisioning for this kind of orchard? | |
| My dream is to have seven tons on the fourth leaf. Then, I want, of course, on the fifth leaf to have ten tons, and then hopefully we’ll stay ten ton for the rest of the life of the tree. I don’t always get what I dream, but that’s my dream. | |
| That’s quite common in life, unfortunately. So what is the general average of production for your cherry orchard? | Stephano and Kyle both laugh at the joke. |
| You know my general production is around eight to ten tons an acre, and that’s because we have self-fertile varieties and we have long growing season. | The camera shot zooms out to show the tree row behind Kyle and Stephano. |
| You touch another very important point. What is the roster of variety that you are farming here? | |
| The best variety that we have today is ‘Centennial’ and ‘Staccato’ and we’re planting a few ‘Glories’. Our old variety would be ‘Sweethearts’. We’re trying to get out of the ‘Sweethearts’ because they just don’t give us the size that we want. We don’t like the clumping. We don’t like a lot of the characteristics. They bear a lot of fruit, but when you to have nine and a half row cherries, it’s not that easy on a ‘Sweetheart’. It’s pretty easy on ‘Staccato’ and ‘Centennial’ to get that fruit size. | |
| That is perfect, thank you. | |
| Okay Kyle, now we are in a high elevation orchard. Can you explain to us a little bit about the elevation, the rootstocks, of the training system, the variety? What are we visiting now? | A panning camera shot shows the tops of orchard trees which sit at a lower elevation. The camera shot settles on a sign which says “Home of A Half-Mile Closer to the Moon. Premium High-Altitude Cherries”. |
| So we’re at over 3,400 foot in Wenatchee, Washington. | The camera pans away from the sign to show an orchard in the foreground and steep hills in the background. |
| And we’re at a place where we call it the moon chairs, we’re at high elevation. And this particular soil is difficult because it’s very heavy clays and so we have to use a lot of compost. We plant the orchards, this one was planted 8 by 16, and that’s what we have. | The shot changes to Stephano and Kyle standing side by side in the row of a cherry orchard. |
| You can see in the compost here, we have lots of different things in it. We have a lot of calcium in it, and the calcium is because it’s very high in potassium. The pH of the soil is about 4.5 to 5.5, so it’s fairly acid. So we’re adding calcium and lime gypsum to try to help loosen up the soil. | The camera pans down to the ground and zooms in on the compost at the base of the trees. Kyle bends down and scoops up two handfuls of soil and presents them to the camera. |
| We’re putting heavy loads of compost because the soil here is so heavy. It helps with the aeration of the roots and things. And the trees, they don’t want to grow very much because it’s kind of a short growing season up here. With a short growing season you have to maximize everything. So the soil temperatures are really cold. The snow sits in here until mid-March or the end of March. So the tree doesn’t really wake up until that third week of May when we start getting flowers. And at that time, it’s kind of a rush. We have to get the biology cranking because the soil temperatures are cold. And so, in order to get the biology cranking–because the biology has to go first in order for the nutrition to follow. | The camera zooms back out to show Kyle kneeling on the ground. He stands and takes his original place next to Stephano. |
| But you can see here as we go through here, the trees are nice. They are happy. You know, cherry trees are native to the Kazakh mountains in Russia, where they have cherry forest. And that’s what I like about this, it seems like the cherry trees have actually come home to their forest here. | Kyle and Stephano walk down the orchard row looking at bright green, healthy looking cherry trees. |
| You can see we have a cherry forest right here next to a Wenatchee forest of pine trees. I think when a cherry tree is in a forest, it’s the happiest it’s ever going to be. | The camera pans to show a pine forest which is separated from the cherry orchard by only a dirt road. |
| Kyle, I want to ask about how you differentiate your production of cherry, compare the commodity one. So what is your marketing strategy? | A wide drone camera shot shows a large cherry orchard in the foreground, with other orchards and steep hills visible in the background. |
| Well, I have to say, we call it Half Mile Closer to the Moon. What that means is, I farm with the moon. You know, like everything composting on the new moon when the gravitational pull is greater to the earth. When the lunar gravitational pull is higher, I do more foliars. But it starts about the first of August, and the price of cherries ends about 24 a box. So I have two sons. I have Tate and west, and they’re at the warehouse. Tate does the sales, and West runs the Stemilt. I’m blessed to have those, and Tate says “Dad, today we’re going to start the moon cherry program, you’re at 2600 foot elevation. You’re a half mile closer the moon”, and he says “Today the box a cherries goes from twenty four dollars a box to fifty five dollars a box.”. | Camera shot switches to Stephano and Kyle standing at the end of an orchard row. |
| So we are close to a pond and we can see the elevation. And we can see different zones of elevation. Can you point it out a little bit, the topography of this area? | A wide drone camera shot shows a large cherry orchard in the foreground, with other orchards and steep hills visible in the background. |
| Sure, you look way down there and that’s Wenatchee and the Columbia River at 600 foot elevation. And you come over here, and that’s where we’re harvesting cherries today. You can see the white shade cloth of the apples. That’s where the black pearls are at 1500 feet. You can see the compost at 1600 feet. You come up and you see the warehouse at 1800 feet. Then you come up to this plateau here and that’s at 2200 to 2300 feet. Then there’s a very big green orchard there at 2400, 2500, or 2600 feet. So every day, more or less, you’re two days later for every 100 foot of elevation that you gain. Come over here, you can see where the sprayers are. That’s at 2,800 feet. The reservoir here is a 2900 or 3000 feet. Then where we were up there, that’s at 3400 feet. | Stephano and Kyle stand next to a pond looking down at the orchard below. Kyle points out each listed location and the camera zooms in on each of them. |
| So you kind of realize, we have an irrigation system where we pump the water to a pond every 500 feet and then we re-pump it. | A wide drone camera shot show the entire orchard and the valleys beyond it. The logo for the Orchard Systems conference appears over this footage. |
