After the warm 80 degree days of mid March, an emergency call was made to bring the bees up from their Florida winter residence early. They arrived at 7:30PM on March 28th, a cold 33 degree evening. John and the crew unloaded the bees without one sting! Very happy about that, however it has taken nearly a week for them to make any kind of movement due to the cold weather that followed their arrival. I guess we can’t blame them though… anyone would experience some shock after leaving warm Florida to cold Michigan. Hoping for the warmer days to continue and the bee movement to increase!

Michigan State Extension says that the very warm March temps moved the fruit trees ahead 5 weeks. This is completely new territory. The fruit trees came out of dormancy and the fruit buds began to grow. Apricots are in bloom now and sweet cherries are starting to bloom. Tarts are still several days away. Apples are coming fast but they bloom later than the stone fruit.  The developing blossoms and the open blossoms can take some cold but as we get below 29f  the amount of damage begins to grow.  Long term weather forecasts were for slightly higher temps in April but the forecast for the next 14 days is for   “cooler more seasonable temps”. So for the next few weeks we will probably have more frost events which will further limit fruit potential.

Getting the bees here has been a big challenge for our bee keeper DeKorne Apiaries. Dan had to pull bees out of areas in Florida before they were finished there so that he could get some on a truck to Michigan in time to catch the sweet cherry bloom. The driver just called and we are headed over to unload pallets of bees and spread them in our orchard.

Last we are going to need daytime temps that reach at least 60 so that the bees move and so that the pollen can move in the flower and fertilize it.  I would have said no way will this all come together any other year, but this year was so warm I am still hopeful that we will get some fruit to the finish line.

John

We recently purchased tart cherries from you and they arrived promptly,
just wanted to thank you for the prompt service. My husband made a
cherry pie ASAP and the cherries are just right. I grew up in
Pennyslvania and from little up picking tart cherries was one of my
favorite chores! While living in Florida for awhile, a health food store
mentioned the benefits of cherry juice so we needed no further
persuasion to drink that! I knew Michigan was the state for cherries so
found your site. Again, thank you for the cherries and juice and may you
have a bountiful year, very satisifed customers, Cherry and Parker Smith*

From: James Johnson

Well your cherries just arrived!  They are excellent.
When I was growing up my grandmother had a cherry tree in her back yard
in Edison Park, IL  (Chicago).  I remember eating them right off the
tree, but my favorite way to eat them was when they were partially
frozen, just like yours arrived.  My grandma's cherries were tart
like yours.  I've never seen them in the grocery store.  My Grandma
was a hero in my life, a strong Norwegian, born in 1899 and passed in
2000. Your cherries bring back fond memories for me, you have a new
customer for life!

Thank You so much for your feedback! Everyone here at king Orchards loves
it when we make our customers happy!

This is the time of year, when it's nice and cold here in Northern Michigan,
to get frozen cherries.

-Alisha

We also still have apples in the market, including the all popular Honeycrisp Apples. There are lots of 2nd apples and snow days are perfect for making apple sauce with the kids. We have frozen cherries in the market and they are available for shipping. Call us at 1-877-937-5464 to get daily updates on what we have in the market or to order your frozen cherries.
To learn more about shipping frozen cherries watch our frozen cherry video  frozen cherry shipping

Alisha

Here’s the background on turkey manure in orchards. We have it delivered in the gravel trains with wood extensions on the sides to pile it high. Each load weighs about 100,000 lb of just manure. At 5,000 lbs per acre a load will do twenty acres of fruit trees.  In the tart cherry orchards we are trying to apply 100 lbs per year of nitrogen. The manure is nice because it is “slow release” and the nitrogen is available to the roots for quite a few months. The fruit trees love it and they look great. Besides the smell there is another drawback. The turkey pooh is high in phosphorous which is a pollutant at higher levels. The fruit trees need phosphorous but they use it at a slower rate so it might build up in the soil. We soil test every year and when the phosphorous has built up to the upper level we will have to quit with the turkey pooh.

From a food safety standpoint manure in general has been attracting negative attention. We apply all of the manure in the fall so that it has had plenty of time to break down in the soil before any fruit crops are on the trees.  In the end it is a win win deal for the cherry orchards and the turkey farms, and to our neighbors who are inconvenienced by the smell we appreciate your patience. Thank you

John

I had been lobbying Jim for a few months to buy a new Orchard tractor. Any more I don’t spend many hours in the tractor seat but I do still plant the sweet corn, pumpkins, and squash. Jim was slow to warm up to the idea but this fall the 1976 John Deere 2030 which I bought with the farm 31 years ago started knocking and smoking. We had used this tractor as our primary cherry harvester puller, orchard mower, and weed spray tractor. The motor had been rebuilt once already.  So I knew Jim would have to allow a new purchase, (unless e fixed the JD2030 again).  Then another of our old workhorse tractors, the 1978 John Deere 2640, quit moving too. Something wrong with the hydraulics.

It is very expensive to fix these old diesels. We put $5,500.oo into one a few years ago and the value when fixed is still only $7,500-8,000. Both of these old John Deeres needed tires too which are now over $1,200 for a pair.  These 1970s John Deeres were very good tractors. The hydraulics were ahead of the rest of the pack and they used a hydraulic hi-lo to turn an 8 speed into a 16 speed. The brakes were always better than the competitions too.

John Deere has closed a lot of dealers, so the dealer is now about 85 miles from here. We have a dealer that we deal with who sells Kubota and New Holland much closer so that swung the deal.  New Holland has the style of tractor that we want for cherry orchards so we were able to buy a “new” tractor with some demo hours on it at a savings. This New Holland T4050 is  90 hp, 4wheel drive with a cab and air conditioning. It will pull the planter straighter across hillsides, it won’t bog down as much(the old tractors were 60-70hp two wheel drive) and the operator is protected from the elements when mowing the tart cherry trees. This style tractor is small enough to go between the rows in sweet cherry and tart cherry orchards without damaging hanging fruit. (it is still too big for close planted apples).

I was a little nostalgic to see the first tractor that I ever bought leaving the farm. I had paid $7,000 in 1980 and if it ran I could still get about $7,000. I doubt that the new tractors will hold their value like the old one did.

John

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