Popular cultivar ALMOST WASN'T

摘要

New tree fruit varieties can take decades before going mainstream and becoming popular with industry and consumers. Coral Champagne is a good example. The early sweet cherry variety that came out of the University of California's sweet cherry breedingprogram at Davis illustrates the time it can take before new varieties take root and the sometimes circuitous route to popularity. Last year, Coral Champagne was the third-leading sweet cherry variety shipped from California. Bing still dominates the ill list—more than 5.2 million boxes of the state's nearly 8.48 million boxes shipped in 2012 were Bing, according to data oi I he ( alifornia Cherry Research and Marketing Board. But Coral Champagne, with more than 786,500 boxes shipped, has moved aheadof its cousin Brooks that tallied around 684,000 boxes. Tulare continues to be an important variety and ranked second with some 916,000 boxes shipped. Boxes are the equivalent of 18 pounds.