Flathead Lake Cherry Growers resumed the cherry harvest for the national market on Monday after a few days’ break to lessen the glut of fruit from a robust season — and to assess damage from a rainstorm.

Ken Edgington, a member of the board of directors of Flathead Lake Cherry Growers, said the report of a moratorium on picking was “a poor choice of words” for the harvesting break of four days.

Edgington, who has orchards in Yellow Bay, said the reason for the break was two-fold.

“One, some areas down here got hit with a pretty heavy rainstorm,” he said. “Me for one. It absolutely devastated my Lamberts to the point that they are not worth picking.”

He said the micro-climates around Flathead Lake may wreck one variety for a grower and not impact the same variety just a half mile down the road. He said his later-ripening lapins were not damaged.

According to Edgington, the glut of cherries on the national market was the other reason Montana growers, in concert with other producers in Washington and Oregon, agreed to temporarily put the brakes on picking for shipping.

“We said to our growers, ‘Look, if your fruit is not going to get too ripe, hold off for a few days and see if the market alleviates itself in a way that makes it worthwhile to go ahead and pick,’” he said.

He acknowledged that Washington growers planting later-ripening cherry varieties may contribute to overlap.

“But Montanans are also planting later crops,” he said. “We’re trying to push ourselves out a little bit later so we don’t have an overlap.”

He added that later-ripening varieties don’t always account for overlap. Sometimes early cherries just ripen late due to weather.

Edgington said the glut on the national market this season started when Oregon had a late yet robust crop that encroached on Washington’s healthy crop. He said that started a ripple effect that created an overlap of Washington and Montana’s cherries at packing plants.

A glut also occurred in 2009.

“In that year, we were early and they [Washington] were late so there was a period of a few days where all of a sudden, there’s a large amount of cherries going into packing plants,” he said. “Usually, that will alleviate itself pretty quickly. They aren’t shipping it out a little bit here and there. They’re shipping it out by the thousands.”

Edgington said the co-op needed to start picking on Monday to get cherries to the packer, Monson Fruit Co. in Washington. He said they grade, clean and package cherries for marketers/selling agents Domex and Charlie’s Produce, which sell to retailers such as Walmart and Super 1 Foods.

The retailers add another factor into the equation of needing shipments timed with advertising campaigns.

“It’s quite a coordinated effort to do that,” he said. “And there was a glut of cherries out there early last week. We decided to tell our growers to hold off for a little bit if you can. Let’s see if it corrects itself.”

Grower Louise Swanberg said that she was told not to pick on Saturday or Sunday but resumed on Monday. She grows cherries on the west shore of Flathead Lake and operates a roadside stand, “The Cherry Haus,” in the Lakeside area.

“We picked on Monday and they switched to a different variety on Tuesday. It’s day-by-day and they can only handle a certain number of lugs a day,” Swanberg said. “They cannot just have you go wholesale and pick your whole crop.”

She said they were trying to be fair and spread the shipments around among growers. She said she can afford to slow down because her orchards  are planted on hills so the cherries don’t all ripen on the same day.

Swanberg believes the planting of later varieties in Washington has contributed to the overlap of harvests.

“Once again, our early season, our Lamberts — less of our lapins — but our Lamberts are crossing over time-wise with their later-season cherries that they didn’t use to plant,” she said. “They’re planting later varieties all the time  that are big and juicy but not that tasty.”

She feels that the packing plant in Washington gives priority to these larger, firmer cherries from growers in their home state.

“They’re packing their own fruit first,” Swanberg said. “If they have leftover space to pack more fruit that day — and it very much depends on orders, a lot of international orders — then they’ll take our cherries.”

She said not knowing whether they can ship cherries from day to day makes it difficult on growers, especially those with fruit getting too ripe.

“There’s an ideal time...a window of four to five days...that you want to pick your crop. They can lock you out of your time window, which is hard,” she said. “This year they have done that a little.”

The Kuntz Family Farm in Yellow Bay had to shut down its Lambert picking for the packing plant after just two days. The field representative has told them that their orchards are done for the season.

Jacob Kuntz, whose parents, Frank and Sandy, own the business, said they may cover expenses this year but they lost any profit. He said that 2012 was too soon for this to happen again after the cherry glut in 2009.

“Our orchard is about 450 trees. There are quite a few that are larger than ours,” he said.

The family taps the local market through outlets such as farmers markets and the roadside business where the Kuntzes sell out of their barn. But for bulk sales, he said they depend on the distributor.

According to Edgington, many factors play into decisions made by the packing plant representatives. They include the ripeness, the size of the cherries,  damage from weather events and the orders received from retail customers.

Edgington said this protects the grower from paying to ship cherries that won’t sell to the retail buyers. He said that top priority was given to ripening crops in deciding where to pick after the break.

“We had field men go into the orchards and they assessed those that were the ripest — those that need to get their cherries off the fastest,” Edgington said. “There was a priority there. We are a cooperative and we’re trying to do the best thing for all of our growers.”

Swanberg said that the local market has held up very well. But she said that Montanans are not getting Montana cherries yet in most grocery stores because of the full packing house.

“We are still trying to get them to honor the deal to pack out a percentage of Montana cherries because most Montanans are very loyal to Montana products,” Swanberg said. “They’ll say ‘Hey, I like Flathead Lake cherries. I don’t want to buy your Washington second-line or third-line cherries. I don’t want to buy these huge ones that happen to look beautiful but don’t have any taste.”

Kuntz and Swanberg said people may buy fantastic-looking and -tasting fruit from the many roadside outlets around Flathead Lake.

“The Lamberts in the top of my orchard are fantastic. They’re ripe right now,” Swanberg said. “Today I’m doing regional sales and roadside sales.”

 Reporter Candace Chase may be reached at 758-4436 or by email at cchase@dailyinterlake.com.