FruitsA hot week at the end of August cut the pollination window for South African fruit marketer Tru-Cape, whose cherry volumes are expected to fall by about half this season.
FruitsAfter a record 2025/26 season, heatwaves, cold fronts and unfinished paperwork for the Chinese market have clouded the outlook for South African cherry growers.
FruitsUniversity of Göttingen researchers found autumn ethephon treatment delayed spring flowering in some sweet cherry cultivars, a possible frost-protection tool, but in one case it cut fruit set from 16 to 6 percent.
FruitsA spring frost cut the Pacific Northwest harvest from 23.6 million boxes, returns of 70-80 cents a pound barely cleared costs of 65-70 cents, and small organic growers say packers will no longer take their fruit.
AgrotechThe Center of Excellence for Orchard Robotics brings seven universities, Fresh Fruit Robotics and Washington Fruit and Produce Co together on machines for apple and cherry orchards, where labour has climbed from 45 to over 60 percent of costs.
The Washington packer will pay past and future royalties, may not propagate the variety through 2029 or export its fruit through 2032; a judge had found the 'Glory' variety patented by a grower was genetically indistinguishable from the Canadian-bred Staccato tree delivered to him by mistake.
Pacific Northwest sweet cherry growers say this year's returns cleared production costs by only a few cents a pound, not enough to repay the debt carried over from last season's oversupply and labour disruption.
Antrim County farmer Greg Shooks, who has used H-2A for eight years on 1,100 acres of cherries, wine grapes, grains and hay, met eight congressional offices with Michigan Farm Bureau after a California ruling threw Adverse Effect Wage Rates back into chaos; his ask is the Supporting Agriculture's Wo
Summerland Varieties Corp. and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada settled with Washington's Monson Fruit Company days before a 14 September trial: Monson pays royalties on past and future Staccato tree sales, cannot export the fruit until 2032 or propagate trees until 2029, and the money goes back int
A protocol signed in Beijing on 8 September by agriculture minister Willie Aucamp and GACC's Sun Meijun opens the world's largest cherry import market, 586,900 tonnes worth US$3.3 billion in 2025, to South African growers for the first time; the department expects about 600 new jobs, and exporter
