KEY TAKEAWAYS:
- Tart cherries aren’t native to Michigan, but the state produces more of them than anywhere else in the United States.
- Settlers to the region are credited for bringing the cherries to the state in the 1800s.
- The Great Lakes, sandy soils, and rolling hills create ideal growing conditions for cherry orchards, helping Michigan become the nation’s tart cherry capital.
- A changing climate is making harder for farmers to maintain cherry production, threatening an industry that has defined the region for generations.
Michigan produces more tart cherries than any other state in the country, earning it the title of “Cherry Capital.” Traverse City is at the center of it all, home to the National Cherry Festival.
But tart cherries are not native to Michigan, so how did they get here? And what keeps our state at the center of the cherry industry hundreds of years later?
From missionaries to orchards
Many cherry industry professionals credit the state’s tart cherry popularity to one of the first white settlers in the Grand Traverse area: Presbyterian Reverend Peter Dougherty. But the claim that he actually planted the first cherry tree in Michigan is thin on evidence.
“It certainly is an urban legend,” said Chris Reiser, president of the Peter Dougherty Society. “We have no written evidence that he actually planted any cherries. He might have.”
Records do say Dougherty came to the region in 1838 to convert Indigenous people to Christianity. Local Ojibwe people reportedly helped him build the first frame-built house between Grand Rapids and Sault Ste. Marie, on what we now call Old Mission Peninsula.
Before settlers like Dougherty arrived, tribes grew fruit trees and local crops. But it's unlikely they were farming cherry trees, in part because the little stone fruit is not native to this region.
“The difference between European farming and Native American farming is that Native Americans were farming for sustainability for themselves and not commercial farming,” Reiser said.
Why does Michigan grow so many cherries?
Changing farming practices in Michigan drove the growth of the cherry industry in the state nearly 100 years after Dougherty first arrived at the tip of the peninsula between the east and west sides of the Grand Traverse Bay.
The U.S. government began sending so-called “Indian Farmers” to the Traverse region to teach local tribes to grow gardens and keep livestock in the manner white Europeans did. According to the Leelanau Historical Society, "Indian Farmers" were white men who were appointed to teach Native Americans how to "become proper citizens and to lead what was then called a sedentary life (as opposed to nomadic)".
Reverend George Nelson Smith was one of the first group of farmers sent to Michigan through the program. He started in Holland and migrated to Northern Michigan in the early 1850s where he is believed to have bought several trees — including a cherry tree from a traveling salesman.
Fourteen years later, Michigan State Board of Agriculture Secretary Sanford Howard visited Smith's orchard and reported that the trees were thriving.
“No reason appears why cherries may not succeed over nearly the whole of the Grand Traverse region,” Howard wrote. “The comparative mildness and uniform temperature of the winter, together with the generally porous nature of the soil, may be regarded as favorable to the finer kinds of this fruit, or the so-called "heart" cherries.”
Cherry production in the state really took off in 1909. That year alone, more than 200,000 new cherry trees were planted, paving the way for Michigan to become the leader in tart cherry production in the United States, responsible for producing 75% of the nation’s tart cherries today.
Many agricultural experts believe cherries have continued to do well in Northern Michigan because of the area’s soil, proximity to Lake Michigan, and rolling hills.
Lake Michigan helps moderate the region’s temperature, especially in the spring, explained Nikki Rothwell, coordinator of the Northwest Michigan Horticultural Research Center and tree fruit specialist at Michigan State University Extension.
These conditions allow the orchards to slowly come out of dormancy until late June and early July.
“So if we do have some bad luck where there’s cold weather that comes in, just like the water, it [the cold air] goes to the lowest spot in the orchard,” Rothwell said.
Cherries don’t do well when their roots are wet, and the fast-draining sandy soil of Northern Michigan has historically helped prevent cherry trees from developing disease, like phytophthora, a fungus-like water mold that destroys the roots and trunks of the tree.
But in the last 50 years, changes in weather patterns have made it much more difficult for farmers to predict their cherry crop yield.
“In the past, we didn't have to irrigate tart cherries because we had beautiful rain patterns … the rain came when you wanted,” she explained. “When the rain comes today, it comes 3 inches at a time and it comes fast and our soils can’t grab that water fast enough so we have a lot of runoff.”
Farming through change
This year, cherry farmers across Michigan are feeling the pinch after facing late frost, as well as temperature swings in the spring. The U.S. Department of Agriculture predicts tart cherry production will decrease by about 24%.
At the Eckerle farm in Northern Michigan, 84-year-old farmer Jim Eckerle has only produced about 10% of what he was expecting for this season. The Eckerle family farm has more than 400 acres across Suttons Bay and Leelanau County, and historically harvests more than a million cherries every year.
“Years ago, we'd send 12 to 15 semi-loads a day [for processing],” he said. “Not this year. We might send three to four loads a day.”
Unpredictable yields have resulted in more cherry imports from outside the United States, which can hurt local farmers like Eckerle.
“If the imports weren’t coming in like they’ve come, the growers would be getting 30% more a pound, and that would level things off a little bit,” Eckerle said.
For this season, Eckerle will be relying on crop insurance to keep things going.
Cherry farming is not an easy job. And economic pressures are leading to some operations closing down and selling off their orchards. But Eckerle hasn’t given up hope his grandson Zach will take over the farm when he’s gone. He wants people to understand that the cherries on their kitchen table have traveled a long way to get there.
“So if you see a tractor going up and down the road, just have some patience with him because he’s giving you something to eat,” Eckerle said.
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