EAST SHORE — Depending on the time of year, a tour around Flathead Lake’s cherry orchards can show trees in full bloom, heavy with fruit, lit up with fall colors or naked with dormancy.

Last week the Montana State University Extension in Kalispell took cherry growers and some Montana Department of Agriculture employees on a tour of orchards that hosted plots of experimental sweet cherry varieties.

Trees were tall, short, stunted, and some even bore the little green beginnings of their first year of fruiting. The difference between the trees at each orchard that volunteered to grow the experimental varieties was noticeable.

It’s all about the soil, the amount of deer damage, how the trees are watered, where the orchard is located and what’s going on with the roots said Washington State University cherry research specialist Matthew Whiting.

Whiting is an expert MSU brought in for the trials to help monitor the cherries and answer any questions cherry orchard owners might have from how to prune trees to why a tree grows a certain way.

Flathead Lake Cherry Growers Board Member Bruce Johnson said orchard owners put their energy into whatever will yield the most return on time put in. And with many of the cherry orchard’s trees getting older, soon cherry growers will have to decide what to replace their old trees with.

“We’ve got a lot of stuff going on to the west of usand it’s different than here, we’ve got our own climate, our own niches here,” Johnson said. “And I think it’s really good that we’re doing our own research here.”

While most cherry varieties may do well in places like Washington and Oregon because the climate is much milder, Montana is a harsher environment, and many cherry growers agree, the research being done around Flathead Lake will make it easier to see which varieties may be applicable to their orchard.

This is the third year of the MSU run project spearheaded by agricultural extension agent Pat McGlynn. The project was funded $9,900 from the MDA Growth through Agriculture Program, $29,400 through the MDA Specialty Crop Block grant and $14,600 through a selfimposed tax from Flathead cherry growers.

This is the last year the project will be officially funded, but with the cherry’s already in the ground and settled in, MSU can now monitor the trees less. Skeena, Attika, Regina, Sam, Hudson, Santina, Pinedale Ruby and Glory are the cherry varieties that are part of the trial.

“These cherry trees are doing really well, all of them,” McGlynn said. “All of these varieties were chosen for size, for taste, except the Santina. Those were chosen for stand owners who wanted an earlier cherry.”

While the size and flavor of the cherries is important, the timing of the harvest is the most important because of competition with Washington state’s cherry harvest said co-op board member Dick Beighle, who participated in the cherry trials.

“In the last 10 years we’ve been hit multiple times with the calamity of West Coast cherries,” Beighle said. “Where it’s not even worth paying to have them picked.”

The calamity Beighle is referring to, is when Washington state cherry growers have a banner year and flood the market with their cherries weeks before Flathead Lake orchards can even start picking theirs. It drives the price per pound of cherries down and makes it impossible for Montana cherry growers to make a profit.

Beighle has 13 varieties in his Finley Point orchard total. That includes the seven trial varieties.

“You don’t want to put all you’re eggs in one basket, you want to find out which one grows the best and then rip out the ones that aren’t growing as well,” Beighle said. “It used to be you planted one (variety) and left it for 30 or 40 years. That doesn’t go anymore if you want to stay in the market.”

Beighle replanted most of his orchard in 2006 and added the cherry trial’s varieties in 2011. He thinks in the next four or five years the trials should yield an answer for Flathead Lake orchard owners who are interested.

The added benefit of being able to speak with Whiting, an expert on the subject, has been beneficial to many cherry growers.

“It’s a big adventure,” Beighle said. “You’re doing something that’s kind of new, it’s nice to have someone tell you you’re doing okay.”

Most of the growers picked Whiting’s brain for tips on issues in their own orchards, and pruning and fertilizing techniques. They also asked him what he thought of how the cherry varieties were going.

Beighle’s trial variety trees fared the best of the four orchards the group of growers looked at on Thursday. Whiting said the orchard’s rocky soil and ability to get full sun probably had a lot to do with the trees’ growth.

“You’ve obviously got it dialed in. I mean, look at these leaves,” Whiting said. “This looks really good.”