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Saturday, May. 31, 2008

Northern San Joaquin Valley in the midst of cherry harvest

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In the late 1960s, Arturo Romero started planting cherry trees because his young children loved to eat the fruit.

Today, two more generations enjoy the bounty at the family farm south of Keyes.

"We eat them like crazy," said daughter Gloria Romero. "There are 22 grandkids and one great-grandchild, and they're in the orchard constantly."

Fortunately, Romero Farms now has 45 acres of cherries, enough to satisfy plenty of other people who seek this late-spring treat.

Romero Farms and other producers are in the midst of the brief harvest in the Northern San Joaquin Valley, supplying fruit to grocery stores, produce stands and farmers markets.

"We came today just for the cherries," said Melissa Esteves of Modesto, shopping Thursday at the Modesto Certified Farmers Market with her sister, Vanessa Huang of Los Angeles.

They were looking over cherries from J&J Ramos Farms of Hughson, one of several producers at the market.

"The sweetness and whether it's juicy -- that's usually how we decide," Huang said.

"And they're really good cold," her sister said.

Growers said the Bing cherry crop, the dominant variety, is a strong one despite the weather swings of the past three weeks -- a heat spike, then wind, then a little rain.

"We're just starting to get into the bulk of the Bing season, so we should have really good cherries for three weeks," said Jim Culbertson, executive manager of the California Cherry Advisory Board in Lodi.

Industry centered in SJ County

The state's cherry industry is centered in San Joaquin County, but Stanislaus has a fair number of producers, too. The north valley harvest falls between the midspring crop from the south valley and the summer cherries from Washington state, the nation's top producer.

North valley growers said they could have suffered badly had the recent rain been followed quickly by more heat, but it's been mild for the past week -- just right for ripening cherries.

In some years, heavier rain forces growers to try to dry off the fruit with low- flying helicopters or ground-based blowers. And every year, birds make off with some of the crop, despite efforts to discourage them with noisemakers and metallic ribbons in the branches.

When harvest time hits, growers must have workers ready to pick the delicate balls of flavor by hand. The recent shortage of pickers has eased because of the downturn in the construction industry, where many of them had gone, said James Romero, who is Gloria's brother and one of eight children of Arturo and Ramona Romero.

All the effort and anxiety pay off when the crop makes it to market. California growers got an average of $2,250 per ton of fresh cherries last year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Compare that with $1,430 for fresh strawberries, $767 for table grapes and $398 for fresh peaches.

"It's always been a high- dollar, marketable crop," James Romero said.

Arturo Romero, now 78, emigrated from Mexico in the late 1940s and eventually got into growing grapes and then peaches. Today, his farm produces peaches and nectarines along with cherries.

Most of the cherries go to Morada Produce and Chin-chiolo Stemilt California, two of the more than two dozen packers in San Joaquin County. Romero also sells to consumers at the Modesto farmers market and at the family farm, at Faith Home and Taylor roads.

People come year after year for the Bings, a variety that gets its flavor from its long hang time in the trees compared with other types.

"They all bloom at the same time," James Romero said, "but the Bing has a longer growing season, so it's picking up sugar."

Bee staff writer John Holland can be reached at jholland@modbee.com or 578-2385.