ALL ABOUT NORTHWEST CHERRIES
NW CHERRIES ARE GROWN ACROSS 5 STATES
A SWEET, HEALTHY TREAT
COMMON CHERRY VARIETIES
Our dark sweet and yellow cherries are recognized throughout the world for their sweetness. firmness and consistency in color. Here are some of the leading varieties we grow to provide cherries for your table from June clear through the summer
CHERRY FACTS AND TRIVIA
It is thought that sweet cherries originated in the region between the Black and the Caspian Seas.
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Cherry domestication dates to before recorded history.
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Cherries derive their name from the Turkish town of Cerasus.
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Turkey remains the largest cherry producing region in the world.
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Cherries migrated with the colonists from Europe in the 1600’s.
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In 1847, a man named Henderson Lewelling traveled from Iowa to western Oregon by ox cart. He brought with him nursery stock which became the first cherry trees planted in the Northwest.
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Seth Lewelling, Henderson’s younger brother, was responsible for the creation of the most famous sweet cherry variety grown today, the Bing, as well as the lesser known Black Republican and Lincoln variet ies. As a strong supporter of President Lincoln, Seth named his ch erries accordingly.
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The Bing cherry is named after Seth Lewelling’s Manchurian orchard foreman and friend, Bing. Bing was over 7 feet tall.
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The Rainier cherry, named after Washington State’s famous volcanic peak, was created in 1952 by cross-breeding the Bing and Van varieties. The cherry was developed by Dr. Harold W. Fogle of Washington State University in Prosser, Washingt on.
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Washington Stat e grows more sweet cherries than any other region in the nation.
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Cherries have the shortest period between flower blossom and harvest of any tree fruit (60-75 days).
The maraschino cherry was created from sweet cherries.
This famous dessert cherry originated on the Balkan Peninsula and northern Italy where merchants would add liqueur to a local cherry called the Marasca. The cherry product that resulted was imported into the United States in the 1890’s.
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In 1896, U.S. ch erry processors began experimenting with a domestic sweet cherry. Less liqueur was used in the processing and almond oil was added. Eventually, the liqueur was eliminated altogether. By 1920, the American maraschino cherry was so popular that it had replaced the foreign variety in the United States.
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Broadway in New York shifts west at East 10th Street because a cherry tree once stood there.
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There are more than 1,000 varieties of cherries in the Unit ed States, but fewer than 10 are produced commercially.
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At one t ime it was against the law to serve ice cream on cherry pie in Kansas.
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The earliest known ment ion of cherries is in Theophrastus (372- 272 B.C) “History of Plants” in which he indicated that cherries had been cultivated for hundreds of years in Greece.
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The Philosopher Pliny suggested that the Roman general Lucullus introduced cherries to Europe around 74 BC, but some research suggests th at cherries were known in Italy at a much earlier date.
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It is said that Lucullus committed suicide when he realized he was running out of cherries.
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Cherries are related to plums and more distantly to peaches and nectarines.
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Cherry pits have been found in several Stone Age caves in Europe.
