GREEN BLUFF, Wash. — Summer closing in usually means cherry and peach season, but this year's off to a rough start for some of the farmers who grow both in Spokane County.
Green Bluff farmer Derrick Hansen knows a thing or two about cherries. He and his dad planted the first cherry tree at Hansen's Green Bluff Orchard, located north of Spokane, nearly forty years ago.
Hansen recalls the that first tree being "probably a three foot whip.”
“Most of them when we get started, you know, they’re two-year-old trees,” said Hansen.
“Cherries take about five or six years to really get them producing. Unlike this year,” he exclaimed, ending with a laugh.
The reason Hansen's laughing is because his cherry crop this year’s lacking to say the least.
“We've got probably enough cherries for the birds if we're lucky. And we didn't even have a single peach blossom on any of our trees. In fact, a lot of our trees actually died,” he said.
This year's been a tough season for Hansen’s cherries & peaches and he's not the only one in the Green Bluff area seeing it.
So what's to blame? According to Hansen, the quick & extreme drop in temperatures the Spokane area experienced back in January did a number on his and the area’s trees with temperatures diving into the sub-zero realm.
“Peaches, if we hit about 25 below zero, it’ll just kill the tree dead. You know, they are not winter hardy crop and we’re right at the edge of their hardiness zone,” said Hansen.
He continued, saying the farm regularly loses their cherry crop: “Cherries are tough tree. It’s not going to kill them. However, they are very cold sensitive and that's why we're right at the edge of cherry country, too.”
Speaking of cherry country, elsewhere in the Pacific Northwest could see a better season this year compared to the last few years when various weather conditions, including 2021’s heat dome, caused issues for the crop.
According to the organization Northwest Cherries in Yakima. they're forecasting the Northwest could yield somewhere between 17 million to 19 million 20-pound boxes for this year's crop of cherries.
President B.J. Thurlby told KREM 2 if that forecast proves to be accurate this year, it would be an average to moderate crop.
As for Hansen, with no luck with this year’s crop of cherries and peaches, he says his family will focus on their other crops, such as apples to pick up the slack: “That's one of the best things about farming. There's always next year."
Hansen’s Green Bluff Orchard is located at 8215 East Greenbluff Road in Colbert.
To learn more about other Green Bluff farmers, visit their website.
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