Growing premium fresh sweet cherries since 1918
CHERRY HARVEST
Our harvest is
multi-dimensional, as we pick Bings in bulk, pick Rainiers in 15 or 20-pound
boxe and other smaller specialty
packs,
and pick both varieties for our Internet retail sales. The fresh market
Bing harvest is usually completed first in late June. Our harvest
has changed significantly the last couple of years. In 2007 we went back
to picking in 35-lb plastic boxes for Bings and then they are transferred into large wooden
bins that hold about 400 pounds. The picker gets a daily ticket punched for each box
that they pick. The bins are carried through the orchards on a special bin
trailer that is pulled by a tractor and returned to a loading area.
Here
the bins receive tags that show what variety and what orchard the fruit came
from and what customer will receive them. They are then stacked and
placed in our new cold room (added in 2006). At the end of the day,
these bins are loaded on a refrigerated truck by a forklift and hauled to the
appropriate warehouse for grading, sorting, and packing.
Until
2007, most of our Rainiers were field-packed.
This meant picking, sorting, and
packing was actually all done in the orchard or at our staging/loading area.
Each picker would have a padded
bucket, sizer on a string, and a row of trees all their own. Now the
cherries are picked into special corrugated plastic boxes or plastic buckets
that take the place of a bucket. They pick
through the trees in several passes, picking only the ripe and large cherries.
Each picker places their full buckets or boxes in a large wooden bin that is
picked up by a tractor. The sorting is then done back at our cold room
area on our sorting lines (added in 2007) or loaded on a refrigerated truck to
be sorted and packed at a local warehouse. The cherries that we sort and
pack ourselves usually end up in
15-pound boxes of loose Rainiers, but we also pick into many different specialty
containers such as baggies, clam shells, or large plastic boxes. Many of
our cherries go to Japan and Taiwan so they must be picked in special packages
and fumigated before shipping. The cherries that are too yellow, too
small, or have to many bruises or markings are discarded.
© 2003-2011 Olmstead Orchards, Inc. 360 Frazer Road Grandview, Washington 98930
Last updated Saturday June 04, 2011 Website problems: webmaster@olmsteadorchards.com
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