Tangy, gooey cherry filling in warm, flaky crusts marks a favorite aspect of the fruit harvest season for many Michiganians, and MSU's Department of Entomology will help tart cherry farmers create fruit for tastier pies.
According to the Lansing-based Cherry Marketing Institute, Michigan harvested 151.5 million pounds of the 222.2 million U.S. tart cherry crop in 2003.
Leading the cherry crop industry by soaking up 75 percent of the national market, Michigan is one of the largest producers of tart cherries in the world, primarily used for baking purposes.
The institute's four-state area that represents most of the nation's cherry market - Michigan, New York, Utah and Wisconsin - will be involved in a study to improve pest resistance in tart cherry production. The department received a $1.6 million grant in September from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to conduct the research.
"Any tart cherry that you eat, there's a 90 percent chance it came from Michigan," entomology Professor Mark Whalon said.
Whalon started grant research last year for cherries and said he put "a huge amount of work" into the 180-page application. Whalon originally requested a $2.48 million grant, but the USDA only awarded a portion of it.
"We had to cut back objectives and narrow it down to meet what we have," he said. "It's kind of bad for this industry, because you only get one shot at one of these grants, and it's a tremendous accomplishment."
Whalon said the department plans to perform 95 percent of the pest-management research in the field, and preliminary research has already begun with researchers recording information from leaf samples on orchards around the state. He said because the grant is aimed to help growers, a board of cherry growers will be involved every step of the way.
"We want to make sure it's useful for them," he said.
Entomology senior Dan Nortman has signed on to help collect data and create an index that will be used to assess the sustainabilty of various orchards. Nortman said he will start his graduate program in the spring to follow through with the research.
"I like it, because it is a lot of the ecology aspect of entomology, and it's pretty applicable to other fields - not just cherries," he said. "It's really cutting edge."
Trustee Don Nugent, the owner of Nugent Farms and president and CEO of Graceland Fruit Inc., said he supports research to better understand the life cycles of different pests for more concentrated control.
Nugent said about $700,000 could be saved annually with chemical reductions to control pests on Michigan's more than 27,000 acres of cherry orchards.
"It's more expensive to go out on farms rather than research in stations, but the market climates are so different around Michigan," he said. "So what the pests might be near Lake Michigan may be totally different than those in Berrien, Michigan."
The Lansing-based Michigan Cherry Committee also is teaming up with the university to tackle the mites, cherry fruit flies and plum curculios - insects that lay eggs inside the fruit.
The committee focuses on both controlling diseases and insects when gearing cherry-growing toward the future. Executive Director Phil Korson said any steps that can be eliminated to save growers money will be an asset for the future.
"We look at our relationship with the university as a tag-team partnership where we, as the industry, work with the technical side as we look to the future," Korson said. "It's very much a partnership for the greater good of the industry, and everyone wins when it takes us to the next level."
Meghan Gilbert can be reached at gilbe109@msu.edu.
