
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.