04/12/06 Rainier Cherries

What makes a Rainier Cherry special? I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. Cherry season is still a couple of months away. The blossoms are just now opening and soon the fruit will start to appear. I'm sure like you; this is one time of year I look forward to. And nothing tastes quite like a Rainier cherry. But where and when did these sweet tasting, yellow cherries with the bright red blush come from. David Severn, promotion director for the Northwest Cherry Growers in Yakima, Wash. says the Rainier is a hybrid. SEVERN: It's actually a cross between two dark, sweet cherries. So it's two darks that made a nice light yellow cherry with a red blush. But it's very high in sugar. If you haven't ever tried it, Rainier cherries are actually about 20% sweeter than dark sweet cherries so they're certainly worth a try. The beginnings of the Rainier cherry are shrouded in myth and mystery. President of the Washington State Fruit Commission, BJ Thurlby, tells us the history. THURLBY: Basically Rainier's were developed at the Washington State University Prosser Research Center for Cherries. Started in the 1970's and it was interesting, it was originally bred to be a pollinator cherry. But literally it's taken 25 years for the cherry to develop into what we would consider kind of a mainstream consumer product. Even the handling of Rainier cherries is different and special. Because the fruit is exceptionally prone to bruising, producers try and only handle the cherry once and that is by the picker. The cherries must be picked before the sun gets too hot and even some producers prefer to pack the cherries in the fields. All this special handling does make the price we pay for a delicious Rainier a bit more in the store. The United States is the largest Rainier cherry producer, with Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Utah leading. The cherry is also grown in a few other states, most notably California and New York; and a small number of Rainier cherry orchards can be found in Canada and Chile. So this season when the cherries appear at the market, try something a little extra special. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.