Cherry Short Course

One of the optional short courses at the 2009 California Small Farm Conference was "Cherry Production and Marketing: Avoiding the pits, reaping juicy rewards."

The short course covered the basics of cherry production and marketing for small acreage producers. The course also included a tour of an organic cherry orchard, with information about organic cherry production from the farmer. Other topics included: cherry industry overview and trends; cherry varieties and rootstocks; site selection (soil, water, climate); pest and disease management; postharvest management and packaging; marketing cherries—conventional and alternative channels; and a financial analysis of establishing and producing a sweet cherry orchard.

Presentations:

Below are PDF copies of PowerPoint presentations given by UC academics at the Cherry short course.

Sweet Cherry Production & Marketing (1.46 MB)
Joe Grant, farm advisor with UC Cooperative Extension San Joaquin County
Harvest and Postharvest Handling of Sweet Cherries (1,450 kb)
Beth Mitcham, postharvest pomologist with UC Davis
Costs to Establish and Produce Cherries (331 kb)
Joe Grant, farm advisor with UC Cooperative Extension San Joaquin County
Marketing Sweet Cherries (918 kb)
Shermain Hardesty, director of the UC Small Farm Program

More about the California Small Farm Conference:

The California Small Farm Conference is a three-day educational conference with on-farm tours, focused workshops, general educational sessions and opportunities for peer networking.