Jul 28, 2019
The high cost of growing cherries
Colin and I have had visitors this week as well as quite a bit of photography to get done 😀  I will catch up with all of that in the next few days but thought you might enjoying this bit on cherries.
We have had a very wet season here thus far which affects the cherry crop. When water gets on the cherries and the sun comes out it causes the fruit to soak up the moisture and to split. There was a fascinating video with dialogue on how helicopters are used to save the fruit in the online news this morning.  What makes the article of particular interest is that this is the helicopter company out of Abbotsford that Colin has flown with for many years of aerial photography.  The pilot on the left in the photo ( but on the right while flying 🙄 )  is who Colin flew with last Sunday while the fellow with the red control helmet is Mischa ( who Colin usually flies with ) the owner of the company, pilot and instructor.  Link to the online article as well as the video.
In case that link does not work, here is the video.
A fellow blogger who lives here in the Okanagan just did a post of a bike ride that included photos of helicopters drying cherries. Â You can see that post and photos by clicking here.
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We watched that video this morning as well and it was very interesting. Thanks for the link to my blog 🙂
You are most welcome. The article mentioned that they had bad weather going back to Vancouver but nothing on the video.
Interesting about the cherries, we have lots around here and they do well.Have never seen a helicopter around though.
Likely you don’t the rain that we do.
Very interesting, you never know what is going on behind the scenes in some of these industries!
I knew that the helicopters were used but not to the extent that the video shows nor the extremely high costs. I still don’t get how they can make a profit.
Thanks for that interesting info. I knew water exposure would split the cherries (same goes for tomatoes) but had no idea they used helicopters to dry them. Now wonder they are pricy. Back home we had a huge black cherry tree and we used nets to cover the tree because the birds would constantly pick on the cherries. It was a battle.
You are most welcome. I have seen the nets on the trees in private lots here and there. I have never seen them in the orchards. Some of the orchards simply use huge fans as the cost of the helicopters are outrageous. I have to say that the last few boxes of cherrie I have picked up have been soft on many of the cherries. I do feel so very sorry of the orchardists.
Holy crap – I had no idea they did that, so much for carbon imprint if you have to dry them with helicopters.
Have fun with your friends!
I thought that it might be a good thing to share with my readers. Having too much fun with our visitors.