Excerpt
Every summer, thousands flock to the National Cherry Festival in Traverse City, Michigan for all things cherry: pit spitting, pie eating, even the royal crowning of the National Cherry Queen. The region produces roughly 75 percent of the country’s tart cherry crop each year for pies, juice, and preserves.
In 1995, Sara McGuire was reigning royalty of the cherry festival. That same year, she and her high school sweetheart, Pat, got engaged and started growing cherries. For the first few years, business was strong, but then a series of low-yield years set them back. Still nothing could have prepared Royal Farms for 2012.
2012 has been the worst year in recorded history for Michigan fruit. Statewide, more than 90 percent of the tart cherry crop was lost when freezing weather followed an unusually warm spring.
“It’s been a real challenge emotionally and physically,” said Pat McGuire. “We have no crop. We’ve had to lay people off. We’ve had to work extra hours. We did everything we could in the spring to minimize the effects of the freezes that we did have. We felt like we just lost a fight.”
Northwestern Michigan is considered by many an ideal place for growing fruit. Located on the 45th parallel, halfway between the equator and the North Pole, the surrounding Great Lakes and rolling hills help create a temperate climate.
But as Pat walks through his orchards now, they are a haunting green. This year, nature harvested the trees.
Cherry trees remain dormant throughout winter until a spring warming wakes them up. That happened much earlier this year. Temperatures in March shattered records across the country, reaching the mid-80’s in Michigan that month - that’s nearly 14 degrees Fahrenheit above the state average. That pushed the trees to a development stage about 5.5 weeks ahead of normal, Nugent said.
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