Hey there. I’m really interested in planting Cherry trees, but I can’t find any decent literature on them anywhere. Do you get a decent buyback price for Cherries? I heard prices are around $1.25. You mentioned having issues because your plots are small—I have the opposite problem. I’ve got a massive 22-acre plot, but I have no clue which orchard setup is actually worth the investment.
Right now, average buyback prices for Cherries sit somewhere between $3-$1.25. There’s also the option of putting the fruit in alcohol barrels—in that case, you're looking at about $7-$2.75 per kg. Specifically, we're talking about the Oblačinska variety. Just assume you’ll get maybe 15 to 25 kg per tree after year five. For Oblačinska, you plant them at 4 x 2 meters. You could fit about 11,000 saplings—so 11,000 x 15 kg = 165,000 kg x $1.00 = $165. That’s basically your worst-case scenario: low yield and low prices. If you own the land, go for the orchard; government grants should pretty much cover the cost of the saplings. Once planted, you reclassify the land as an orchard and pull in an annual subsidy of $0.83 per acre. As for gear, you’ll need a tractor around 60 HP, a pneumatic tiller with a specialized attachment (it handles the rows between trees too), a wood chipper, a plow, and a sprayer. Budget about $15,000 for equipment, assuming you're buying used machinery. The tricky part is sourcing the right saplings; our local nurseries only sell grafted trees rather than growing them from rootstock. Trees grown from rootstock tend to be less vigorous, meaning you can cram more into an acre. Since these are grafted—usually onto sweet cherry rootstock—you get highly vigorous trees that require a wider spacing of 4 x 3.5 m.
For reading material, check out
www.bookstore.com and
www.usfood.com.
Personally, I’ve gathered quite a few articles from "Double Morning" and one book: *Cherry*, by Prof. Dr. Evica Mratinić, 2002 edition—New York City.
Regarding profitability—it really just comes down to how much capital you have to sustain it. Apples and pears are the most profitable, sure, but the upfront investment is massive. Blackberries are incredibly lucrative, but you need a ton of manual labor, which is becoming a nightmare here—it's getting harder to find people willing to work for decent wages. We went with Cherries because the buyback is more or less guaranteed and there isn't nearly as much handiwork involved. Harvesting is done with mechanical shakers.
Best,
