May 17th, 2002 was the official date when tart cherry trees reached full bloom in northern Michigan that year. The orchards looked normal but most of the cherry buds had been destroyed in April by freezing cold.
The Leelanau Enterprise ran a headline that summer that said “No Cherries.”
Ben LaCross is a second generation grower on a farm north of Cedar. He says nobody could recall a cherry crop failing so completely.
“There were rumors of one back in the early 60s or 50s,” he says. “But no one in this generation of cherry growers had ever really experienced anything like that.”
Then they experienced it again in 2012.
Nevertheless, at LaCross Farms, workers are planting 50 acres of new cherry trees this spring. Ben LaCross says there aren’t many alternatives for farming up here.
“We only have 100 days of heat in the summer and that limits us to what we could grow,” he says. “Cherries have always fit so well in northern Michigan. They’re our historical fruit. They’re our historical commodity. We have a festival named after our fruit. We have an airport named after our fruit.”
New cherry trees are a 30-year investment. They won’t produce any fruit until age seven. LaCross says despite what he calls a couple “hiccups” with tart cherries recently, he sees a long vibrant future for the fruit.
