Consumers are seeking bigger cherries and, according to market returns, the bigger the fruit the bigger the cheque from the agent. Although the consumer may still accept a 24 mm cherry, larger fruit brings higher returns—a factor that may determine the future viability of an orchard.
For mid to late season fruit a 5 kg box of small 22 to 24 mm cherries sells for $20 to $25 whereas large 26 to 28 mm cherries sell for $35 to $40 per 5 kg box (gross). When production costs are taken into account the differences in net returns and profits are even greater.
Assuming costs of about $14 per box, net returns for small fruit are only $5 to $10 compared with $20 to $25 for large fruit. However, larger fruit can come at a price, as the biological potential is equally as important as market returns.
As with all fruit trees the cherry tree can only produce a specific quantity of fruit. This quantity can consist of either a large number of small fruit, a small number of large fruit or, preferably, a medium number of medium to large fruit. Achieving this optimum balance can be difficult, but the following suggestions can help to manipulate cherry trees into producing a desired fruit size range.
What Can Cause Small Cherries?
Small cherries are not inevitable (unless the wrong variety was chosen). Some of the main causes include:
- wrong variety / rootstock selection
- inadequate or inappropriate pruning
- too many fruit on smaller trees—lack of balance (i.e., too much fruit with too little leaf area)
- low tree vigour
- lack of water at critical times
- heat stress.
Crop Loading—Getting The Balance Right:
Optimum crop loading is an achievable goal. Modern orchards are more uniform, healthier and more yield predictable than in the past. In addition, cherry orchardists are gaining more control over climatic factors with protective structures and treatments.
While a pollination failure, frost or unexpected heat wave will still disrupt cropping, cherry production is losing some of its uncertainties. The following two examples provide some insight into what can be achieved with accurate crop loading.
In determining fruit size, Table 3 presents some useful comparisons. With only a 30% difference between the highest and lowest crop loads, gross returns in these examples were very similar but net returns from the light cropped trees were 40% higher than for the heavy cropped trees.
These trees show some important principles in crop loading cherry trees:
• It is important to match the crop to the tree size.
• There is an upper limit for fruit size. Lighter crops will not further increase this size.
• An ideal for this variety/location interaction appears to be 25 cherries per cm2 TCSA (trunk cross sectional area) and about 0.25 yield efficiency.
• Getting the right result does involve some counting and measuring. Some simpler methods using buds, spurs and branch length are being tested.
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