Tough start to cherry season with rain and cold weather hindering harvest

The market may have to wait a little longer for perfect Manjimup cherries as growers face more challenges with rain and colder weather than normal at this time of the year. Manjimup cherry grower Louis Vellios, pictured, has been growing cherries at his Hillview Orchard for 18 years and said he had never seen a start to the season this bad, with his crop down by about 30 per cent so far. “It depends what happens from here on, whether we pick them or leave them, because any amount of rain will split them now,” he said. “The cherries aren’t bad but they haven’t been pollinated evenly so we have to go through three or four times to get the crop off, whereas on a normal year you’d go through once and they’re all gone. I’m hoping it doesn’t rain and I’m hoping it warms up.” Despite the slow start with his early sweet variety cherries, Mr Vellios said he was still optimistic about the season as a whole and thinks there should be more cherries ready to go by the middle of December. “We have about 30 per cent down but the quality of the fruit that’s going to be there is going to be better because it’ll be better size,” he said. “It’ll come right sooner or later and when it comes they’ll probably all come on at once. “It’ll be a good year, I think we’ll have lots of cherries by the Cherry Festival, providing it warms up.” Cherry Valley’s Carol Dymock also said it may be a lighter season due to the weather this year. “I feel we’ve had not enough chill factor through the winter,” she said. “Certain varieties need a higher chill factor than others, so we’re going to have less yield. “The rain has just kept on going and the cherries, when they get near ripe, they do split.’’ However, Mrs Dymock was also remaining positive about the season ahead. “I think we’ll pull through, it’s like every year, we’ve got to deal with what we’ve got, can’t do much about it, it just comes back to the climate,” she said. “We just keep on going, keep on smiling — I’m hoping because we’ve had all this cooler weather we’ll have a nice, fine, cool day for the Cherry Festival.”