When California cherries are early, Mother’s Day promotions are the rage. When they are late, the Memorial Day Weekend is the holiday that benefits. “This year, we can promote California cherries throughout the month of May” and hit both holidays, said Jim Hanson of Grower Direct Marketing LLC, based in Stockton, CA.

Hanson said that with the expansion of the cherries throughout the San Joaquin Valley over the last two decades, there can also be an expansion in the timing of season, which has occurred this year. He said the southern part of the Central Valley has a very good crop and it appears to be at least 10 days early with regard to volume. While the first week of May is typically the start date, Hanson expected cherries as early as April 18, with good volume by late April. That means plenty of fruit for Mother’s Day, which lands on May 8 this year, as early as it can be. Memorial Day, on the other hand, is almost as late as it can be with a May 30 date this year. Nonetheless, Hanson said there still should be good fruit during that fourth week of May when packers are filling retailers’ orders.

Maurice Cameron of The Flavor Tree Fruit Co. in Hanford, CA, had a very similar outlook. “Although at the time of this interview, there are no official crop estimates yet, the 2016 crop is presenting itself to be a unique situation in California,” he said. “Most orchards in the central and southern San Joaquin Valley have a good crop. Our start dates should be similar to 2015, however the amount of fruit that will be available during the early time frame will be greater.”

He credited “new early production areas coming into their own, coupled with good production in areas where we hadn't seen much fruit in the past two years, and, of course, more acreage in the center of the valley being in production. So this year we expect a shift of more fruit being available early and less of a crop toward the end of the month with the Bings.”

Cameron said the value of having good promotable supplies early in the season can’t be overstated. “Our unique crop situation of good volumes of fruit will allow retailers to have attractive pricing from the beginning of the season. This can set up our whole deal to have the consumer demand early on to drive sales through the whole season. Of course, we also will have good supplies for Memorial Day ads.”

Biranna Shales of Stemilt Growers, which sells the cherries of Stockton, CA-based Chinchiolo Stemilt California LLC, said the combination of cold during the winter and warm February weather is what brought on the volume of cherries early and is creating this early marketing opportunity. However, she said the northern districts, which is where the Bing variety dominates, did not get as good a set this year and so the latter portion of the crop will be lighter than last year.

Hanson said significant rains during the northern bloom resulted in bloom drop, which is why the trees did not set a heavy crop.

Nonetheless, he said the Bing is still king and should be the number one volume variety shipped from California this year, as it has been every year for seemingly decades. But Hanson noted that “while the Bing is still king, there are a lot of other princes being noticed. Coral and Tulare are gaining in popularity.”

With the early volume, Cameron said opening prices in California should be lower than last year. “With that, we hope to see a more gradual change in the market as weeks progress in 2016. We should see a more attractive market price in the beginning of the season that should create steady demand for steady supply.  We are working with our retail partners to create strong demand for California fruit early on in the season.”