Generations ago, Utah fruit growers turned to tart cherries because the trees thrived in the region’s salty soils and the mechanized harvest made the crop manageable for family farms without much access to seasonal labor.Today, growers still plant the way their grandfathers did, but they face escalating input costs, pressure from development and competition from imports. That's why Utah State University professor and Extension fruit specialist Brent Black has devoted much of his research program to finding more efficient management strategies for the nation’s second-largest tart cherry region.Much of that work centered on the vision of a high-density system: dwarfing, precocious plantings that could be harvested over the row, like a giant blueberry bush, starting in the third leaf, to boost an orchard's productive lifetime. Traditional treescan’t withstand shaking until the seventh or eighth leaf, Black said, and then trunk injuries from shaking can cut into an orchard's longevity, too.
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