May 8-12, 2017
Meet Your Cherry Farmer!
Cherry farmer Kelli dropped by for a visit this week in Nutrition Expedition! We learned all about how cherries grow, checked out a cherry pit, looked through some cherry pictures, watched a few short video clips about cherry growth, and read the book Pie in the Sky, by Lois Ehlert. It was a busy week!
It takes approximately 4 years for a cherry tree to bear fruit, and that's if you start with an already developed seedling or small tree! Dwarf trees have a shorter production time (about 3 years). Once mature, a standard-size cherry tree will produce 30 to 50 quarts of cherries each year, while dwarf trees will produce about 10 to 15 quarts.
Early each spring, cherry trees will blossom, and require bees and other insects to begin pollination. While tart cherries are self-fertile (meaning you only need one variety when pollinating), sweet cherries must be cross-pollinated with another variety of cherry. Once fertilized, the blossom will eventually wither and fall off, leaving a new cherry in its place! This process takes roughly 60 days between blossom and harvesting. To learn more about growing cherries, check out this link.
Super Sleuth Questions
1. Where do cherries grow? (answer: on a tree)
2. Who pollinates the cherry blossoms? (answer: bees and other insects, like butterflies)
3. Why do farmers put nets over the trees while the cherries are growing? (answer: to keep birds and other predators from eating them)
4. Is a dark red, almost purple cherry tart or sweet? (answer: sweet)
