AgBioResearch

Michigan Cherry Industry Research Priorities

Submitted by:
Cherry Marketing Institute
12800 Escanaba Drive, Suite A
Dewitt, MI  48820

Current and Future Plant Protection Issues:

• IPM Strategies for Spotted Wing Draspholia (SWD).
• Disease protection (alternatives for increasingly difficult disease resistance to SI’s and SDI’s including leaf spot, brown rot and mildew).
• Insect protection (Plum Curculio, Cherry Fruit Fly, Mites, OBLR, San Jose scale & Boar Management) via chemical and IPM efforts, basic biology & genetics.
• MRL issues that impact the export markets.
• Breeding program (leaf spot, Armillaria, etc.).
• Ground cover and weed management.
• Orchard replant issues.
• Abandoned Orchards.
• Climate change resiliency (drought, hardness & bloom time)

Current and Future Marketing Priorities:

• New and expanded uses of cherries – both sweet and tart cherries.
• Pits and ways to reduce them in finished product.
• Production trends world-wide by variety for tart cherries.
• Varieties and/or production practices to discover or improve marketable traits, i.e., firmer texture, nutraceutical content, larger size, fresh market, sugar/acid balance, color etc. (high density plantings)
• Production development (IPM / Sustainability).
• Market research.

Other Current Production Issues:

• Computerized weather station network upgrading
• Wild life management issues in tree fruit.
• Fruit set, growth regulators.
• Bacterial Canker.
• Orchard nutrient management, rootstock, photosynthesis with regard to soft fruit.
• Irrigation efficiency.
• Frost protection/delayed bloom.
• De-fruiting young trees

Last Updated: June 2023