The cold winter of 1995-96 and the cool, wet weather of the spring of 1996 contributed to a sub-par fruit harvest in the Great Lakes State. Harvesting of most fruit began later than normal. The reduced crop sizes and favorable weather allowed harvesting of most fruit to be completed on time.
Apple production dropped 41 percent to 725 million pounds (17.3 million bushels). It was the smallest crop since the 700 million pounds of 1986. The farm-level value of the 1996 crop was $87 million, down 28 percent from 1995. Michigan ranked fourth among states in apple output. Washington, New York and California orchardists produced 5.5 billion, 1.03 billion and 900 million pounds of apples, respectively.
The 1996 tart cherry crop in Michigan was 195 million pounds, 37 percent below last year. Michigan produced 72 percent of the national total. The yield in Michigan fell to 7,140 pounds per bearing acre, down from 10,300 pounds in 1995. Bearing acres slid by 2,700 to 27,300, as grower bulldozed trees after low prices in 1995.

Sweet cherry production fell 19 percent in 1996 to 22,000 tons. Michigan ranked fourth in the nation in production, following Washington, Oregon, and California, which produced 69,000, 32,000 and 25,000 tons, respectively. The Michigan sweet cherry crop had a farm-level value of $15.6 million.

Despite a crop that was down 37 percent from 1995, Michigan continued as the leading state in cultivated blueberry production in 1996. The 42 million pound output accounted for 32 percent of the U.S. total. The farm- level value of this fruit was more than $36 million.  Fresh market outlets used 36 percent of the Michigan blueberry crop. The remaining 64 percent were frozen or canned. New Jersey was second to Michigan in blueberries, producing 35 million pounds. Van Buren, Ottawa and Allegan Counties have about 83 percent of Michigan's acreage.

Michigan's peach production dropped to 40 million pounds in 1996 from 60 million pounds a year earlier. Many growers with blocks more than 15 miles inland from Lake Michigan were completely frozen out. The value of the Michigan crop was nearly $11 million. Pear output rose from 5,000 to 6,000 tons. Prune-plum production plummeted to 2,500 tons. Poor yields were compounded by the loss of about one-fourth of bearing acres.

The production of grapes dropped 7 percent to 65,000 tons. Utilized production was only 59,500 tons, as 5,500 tons of Concords were lost before harvest from a killing frost. There were 47,500 tons of Concords and 10,000 tons of Niagaras processed. Wine use was 1,600 tons, down from 2,000 in 1995. The crop was valued at more than $13 million. Michigan ranked fifth in grape production behind California, Washington, New York and Pennsylvania. About 88 percent of Michigan's grape acreage is located in Berrrien and Van Buren Counties.

Michigan growers produced 60,000 hundredweight of fresh and processed strawberries in 1996, a 41 percent decrease from last year's output. This production value is the lowest since records began in 1928. Harvested acreage, 1,500, was down 12 percent from 1995. Value of production for all strawberries was slightly above $4.5 million, which was down 34 percent from the previous year. The top five counties producing strawberries are: Berrien, Kent, Leelanau, Manistee, and Oceana. Michigan ranked eighth nationally in strawberry production. The amount of fresh market strawberries produced this year was 56,000 hundredweight, a 38 percent decline since 1995.

Table 5-1.-Fruit: Area, production, and value
Item	Yea r	Bearing area	Yield	Total production	Utilized production	Price received	Value of production
		Acres	Pounds per acre	Million pounds	Million pounds	Dollars per pound	1,000 dollars
Apples	1992	54,000	20,000	1,080	1,050	0.085	89,500
	1993	55,000	18,500	1,020	1,020	0.085	86,760
	1994	54,000	18,900	1,020	1,020	0.086	87,600
	1995	54,000	22,600	1,220	1,220	0.099	120,680
	1996	55,000	13,200	725	725	0.120	87,250
Blueberries 1	1992	13,000	2,620	34	34	0.797	27,100
	1993	15,500	5,610	87	87	0.398	34,650
	1994	15,500	3,030	47	47	0.536	25,180
	1995	16,300	4,110	67	67	0.499	33,450
	1996	16,500	2,550	42	42	0.865	36,330
Cherries, tart	1992	33,900	7,230	245	235	0.175	41,100
	1993	33,000	8,180	270	215	0.114	24,610
	1994	32,000	6,560	210	210	0.170	35,636
	1995	30,000	10,300	310	250	0.054	13,448
	1996	27,300	7,140	195	195	0.160	31,202
Peaches	1992	7,300	7,260	53	51	0.169	8,631
	1993	7,000	8,140	57	54	0.190	10,260
	1994	5,500	2,730	15	15	0.227	3,400
	1995	5,500	10,900	60	60	0.210	12,594
	1996	5,600	7,140	40	40	0.272	10,870
		Acres	Tons per acre	Tons	Tons	Dollars per ton	1,000 dollars
Cherries, sweet	1992	7,500	2.40	18,000	17,000	689	11,708
	1993	7,500	4.00	30,000	27,000	693	18,717
	1994	7,300	3.42	25,000	23,000	587	13,497
	1995	7,300	3.70	27,000	27,000	581	15,700
	1996	7,300	3.01	22,000	22,000	709	15,607
Grapes	1992	11,300	4.16	47,000	43,000	241	10,375
	1993	11,500	4.78	55,000	49,000	238	11,670
	1994	11,700	5.56	65,000	65,000	229	14,860
	1995	11,800	5.93	70,000	64,000	237	15,196
	1996	11,900	5.46	65,000	59,500	228	13,555
Pears	1992	1,200	5.00	6,000	5,500	236	1,299
	1993	1,100	5.00	5,500	5,500	225	1,240
	1994	1,000	4.50	4,500	4,500	279	1,255
	1995	1,000	5.50	5,500	5,000	280	1,400
	1996	1,000	6.00	6,000	6,000	260	1,560
Plums	1992	2,400	3.75	9,000	9,000	263	2,364
	1993	2,200	3.18	7,000	7,000	244	1,710
	1994	1,800	3.33	6,000	6,000	166	993
	1995	1,700	4.41	7,500	7,000	229	1,603
	1996	1,300	1.92	2,500	2,500	335	837
1 Harvested acres.

Table 5-2.-Apples: Utilization and price
Year	Fresh market		Processing		Total utilization
	Quantity	Price received	Quantity	Price received	Quantity	Price received
	Million pounds	Dollars per pound	Million pounds	Dollars per pound	Million pounds	Dollars per pound
1992	400	0.110	650	0.070	1,050	0.085
1993	360	0.120	660	0.066	1,020	0.085
1994	320	0.125	700	0.068	1,020	0.086
1995	400	0.150	820	0.073	1,220	0.099
1996	225	0.170	500	0.097	725	0.120

Table 5-3.-Apples, processing: Utilization and price
Year	Canned		Frozen		Juice and cider		Other
	Quantity	Price received	Quantity	Price received	Quantity	Price received	Quantity	Price received
	Million pounds	Dollars per pound	Million pounds	Dollars per pound	Million pounds	Dollars per pound	Million pounds	Dollars per pound
1992	250	0.080	90	0.090	300	0.056	10	0.060
1993	265	0.077	110	0.089	275	0.046	10	0.046
1994	255	0.081	110	0.090	325	0.050	10	0.050
1995	250	0.083	165	0.092	400	0.060	5	0.087
1996	170	0.106	120	0.117	200	0.079	10	0.085

Table 5-4.-Blueberries: Utilization and price
Year	Production		Fresh market		Processed
	Total	Utilized	Quantity	Price received	Quantity	Price received
	Million pounds	Million pounds	Million pounds	Dollars per pound	Million pounds	Dollars per pound
1992	34	34	10	1.150	24	0.650
1993	87	87	19	0.750	68	0.300
1994	47	47	15	0.740	32	0.440
1995	67	67	19	0.750	48	0.400
1996	42	42	15	1.000	27	0.790

Table 5-5.-Cherries, sweet: Production and utilization
Year	Total production	Utilized production
		Fresh	Canned	Brined	Other 1
	Million pounds
1992	36	1.2	5.6	24.7	2.5
1993	60	2.4	4.0	41.2	6.4
1994	50	2.2	4.6	31.8	7.4
1995	54	2.0	5.6	40.6	5.8
1996	44	1.0	2.4	33.6	7.0
1 Frozen, juice, etc.

Table 5-6.-Cherries, tart: Utilization
Year	Production		Fresh market	Utilization of sales
				Processed
	Total	Utilized		Canned	Frozen	Other
	Million pounds
1992	245	235	5	65	160	5
1993	270	215	3	70	135	7
1994	210	210	2	80	125	3
1995	310	250	1	70	160	19
1996	195	195	1	55	135	4

Table 5-7.-Cherries, tart: Production by region
Region	1992	1993	1994	1995	1996
	Million pounds
Northwest	110	145	100	160	140
West Central	75	89	53	97	35
Southwest and other	60	36	57	53	20
State total	245	270	210	310	195

Table 5-8.-Cherries, tart: Stocks in cold storage
Month	East North Central region 1				48 States total 2
	Crop year				Crop year
	1993	1994	1995	1996	1993	1994	1995	1996
	1,000 pounds
July	75,183	111,275	108,166	78,289	99,205	143,112	131,704	103,795
August	114,333	123,126	147,964	124,960	140,247	167,876	178,397	155,678
September	106,489	114,268	134,726	121,793	131,335	150,058	162,583	151,751
October	109,875	107,490	123,009	114,624	129,512	140,323	149,275	146,260
November	101,631	98,549	115,886	108,223	118,320	127,642	141,057	137,226
December	89,440	93,427	105,149	99,813	105,684	120,864	128,072	127,102
January	75,125	90,968	94,729	88,843	87,528	112,901	116,522	112,844
February	63,333	85,955	87,087	81,106	75,174	108,644	106,329	100,144
March	53,820	79,684	75,906	72,915	64,165	101,754	92,823	90,809
April	44,768	72,013	67,782	64,563	53,390	88,683	82,708	78,561
May	35,854	66,148	55,896	57,579	45,245	80,660	68,846	70,508
June	28,416	54,419	50,181		35,854	72,500	59,995
1 Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin.
2 Excluding Alaska and Hawaii.

Table 5-9.-Grapes: Utilization
Year	Fresh market utilization	Processed utilization		Utilized production
		Juice	Wine
	Tons
1992	500	40,800	1,700	43,000
1993	800	46,500	1,700	49,000
1994	1,000	62,600	1,400	65,000
1995	500	61,500	2,000	64,000
1996	400	57,500	1,600	59,500

Table 5-10.-Grapes: Processed by variety
Year	Variety
	Concord	Niagara	Other	Total
	Tons
1992	35,000	6,100	1,400	42,500
1993	39,500	6,800	1,900	48,200
1994	54,100	8,600	1,300	64,000
1995	50,300	11,200	2,000	63,500
1996	47,500	10,000	1,600	59,100

Table 5-11.-Plums: Production and utilization
Year	Total production	Utilized production
		Fresh	Processed
	Tons
1992	9,000	4,000	5,000
1993	7,000	2,000	5,000
1994	6,000	1,700	4,300
1995	7,500	3,300	3,700
1996	2,500	1,300	1,200

Table 5-12.-Strawberries: Area, production, and value
Year	Area		Production		Price received	Value of production
	Planted	Harvest ed	Per acre	Total
	Acres	Acres	Cwt.	1,000 cwt.	Dollars per cwt.	1,000 dollars
1992	2,200	2,000	66	132	58.50	7,727
1993	2,100	1,900	60	114	67.00	7,637
1994	2,000	1,800	55	99	63.60	6,300
1995	1,800	1,700	60	102	66.90	6,822
1996	1,700	1,500	40	60	75.20	4,512

Table 5-13.-Strawberries: Disposition and value
Year	Fresh Market			Processing
	Producti on	Price received	Value of production	Producti on	Price received	Value of production
	1,000 cwt.	Dollars per cwt.	1,000 dollars	Tons	Dollars per ton	1,000 dollars
1992	113	63.00	7,119	950	640.00	608
1993	92	74.40	6,845	1,100	720.00	792
1994	81	70.00	5,670	900	700.00	630
1995	90	71.00	6,390	600	720.00	432
1996	56	78.00	4,368	200	720.00	144