Fruit The warm spring of 1998 caused Michigan fruit crops to develop ahead of normal. Hot, dry weather persisted throughout most of the growing season. No major disease outbreaks occurred. Harvests were 10 to 14 days ahead of average. Peach and blueberry yields fell sharply from 1997 due to poor pollination and frost damage in May. Tart and sweet cherry yields, however, were excellent. Some economic abandonment of apples and sweet cherries happened. More than 30 million pounds of tart cherries were diverted via the marketing order.

Apple production was 970 million pounds, down slightly from 1 billion pounds in 1997. The preliminary farm-level value of the crop was 81.3 million dollars, down 17 percent from 1997. The yield estimate was 18,000 pounds per acre. Michigan was third among states in apple output. Washington, New York and California orchardists produced 6.4 billion, 1.07 billion, and 815 million pounds of apples, respectively.

Tart cherry production hit the 263 million pound level, 75 percent of the national total. The yield in Michigan rose to 9,260 pounds per bearing acre, up from 7,920 pounds in 1997. Utilized tart cherry production was 229 million pounds. Sweet cherry production rose 30 percent from 1997 to 35,000 tons. Washington, Oregon, and California produced 96,000, 55,000, and 15,400 tons, respectively.

Michigan's output of cultivated blueberry production was 49 million pounds, almost 33 percent of the U.S. total. The farm-level value was more than 30 million dollars. Fifty-five percent of Michigan's blueberries were frozen or canned. New Jersey growers produced 37 million pounds. Strawberry production in Michigan slipped 3 percent to 9.5 million pounds, as acreage continued to decline.

Peach production dropped to 43 million pounds in 1998 from 55 million pounds a year earlier. Pear output rose from 4,000 to 5,040 tons. Plum output slipped from 4,000 tons in 1997 to 3,600 tons.

Grape production increased 15 percent to 70,400 tons. Processed grapes included 53,800 tons of Concords and 13,700 tons of Niagaras. Grapes processed for wine declined from 2,600 tons in 1997 to 2,500 tons in 1998. Michigan ranked third in grape production behind California and New York.

Table 7.1_Fruit: Area, production, and value
Item	Year	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	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	54,000	13,000	700	700	0.126	88,125
	1997	54,000	18,500	1,000	1,000	0.098	98,200
	1998	54,000	18,000	970	930	0.087	81,250

Blueberries ¹	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
	1997	16,500	4,360	72	72	0.695	50,042
	1998	16,400	2,990	49	55	0.618	30,260

Cherries, tart	1994	32,000	6,560	210	210	0.170	35,636
	1995	30,000	10,300	310	250	0.054	13,448
	1996	29,100	6,700	195	195	0.160	31,202
	1997	28,400	7,920	225	221	0.156	34,380
	1998	28,400	9,260	263	229	0.140	32,162

Peaches	1994	5,500	2,730	15	15	0.227	3,400
	1995	5,500	10,900	60	60	0.210	12,594
	1996	5,300	7,170	38	38	0.270	10,250
	1997	5,000	11,000	55	55	0.263	14,450
	1998	5,000	8,600	43	42 .5	0.272	11,551
		Acres	Tons per acre	Tons	Tons	Dollars per ton	1,000 dollars
Cherries, sweet	1994	7,600	3.29	25,000	23,000	587	13,497
	1995	7,600	3.55	27,000	27,000	581	15,700
	1996	7,700	2.86	22,000	22,000	709	15,607
	1997	7,800	3.46	27,000	27,000	740	19,986
	1998	7,900	4.43	35,000	33,000	562	18,551

Grapes	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
	1997	12,300	4.96	61,000	61,000	252	15,380
	1998	12,300	5.72	70,400	70,400	249	17,510

Pears	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
	1997	900	4.44	4,000	4,000	250	1,000
	1998	900	5.60	5,040	4,800	271	1,302

Plums	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	838
	1997	1,150	3.48	4,000	4,000	348	1,390
	1998	1,100	3.27	3,600	3,600	300	1,080
¹ Harvested acres.

Table 7.2_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

1994
320 0.125 700 0.068 1,020 0.086

1995
400 0.150 820 0.073 1,220 0.099

1996
225 0.170 475 0.105 700 0.126

1997
300 0.150 700 0.076 1,000 0.098

1998
320 0.130 610 0.065 930 0.087

Table 7.3_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

1994
255 0.081 110 0.090 325 0.050 10 0.050

1995
250 0.082 165 0.092 400 0.060 5 0.087

1996
200 0.110 125 0.125 140 0.080 10 0.085

1997
265 0.090 160 0.096 270 0.052 5 0.060

1998
230 0.080 130 0.090 240 0.038 10 0.050

Table 7.4_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

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

1997
72 72 19 0.988 53 0.590

1998
49 55 16 0.860 33 0.500

Table 7.5_Cherries, sweet: Production and utilization

Year Total
production Utilized production

Fresh Canned Brined Other ¹

Million pounds

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

1997
54 1.0 1.6 43.0 8.4

1998
66 1.4 9.4 49.0 6.2

¹ Frozen, juice, etc.

Table 7.6_Cherries, tart: Utilization

Year Production Fresh market Utilization of sales

Processed

Total Utilized Canned Frozen Other

Million pounds

1994
210 210 2 80 125 3

1995
310 250 1 70 160 19

1996
195 195 1 55 135 4

1997
225 221 1 70 145 5

1998
263 229 1 65 150 13

Table 7.7_Cherries, tart: Production by region

Region 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998

Million pounds

Northwest
100 160 140 140 186

West Central
53 97 35 70 59

Southwest and other
57 53 20 15 18

State total
210 310 195 225 263

Table 7.8_Cherries, tart: Stocks in cold storage

Month East North Central region ¹ 48 States total ²

Crop year Crop year

1995 1996 1997 1998 1995 1996 1997 1998

1,000 pounds 1,000 pounds

July
108,166 78,289 83,634 144,388 131,704 103,795 105,283 169,624

August
147,964 124,960 170,555 139,644 178,397 155,678 194,571 165,591

September
134,726 121,793 144,201 133,436 162,583 151,751 168,173 157,631

October
123,009 114,624 133,493 121,605 149,275 146,260 154,891 143,413

November
115,886 108,223 129,212 112,595 141,057 137,226 148,945 133,236

December
105,149 99,813 118,540 100,308 128,072 127,102 136,297 122,205

January
94,729 88,843 109,747 90,510 116,522 112,844 127,244 109,891

February
87,087 81,106 92,744 83,031 106,329 100,144 106,880 101,338

March
75,906 72,915 80,498 74,204 92,823 90,809 93,271 90,917

April
67,782 64,563 66,823 65,852 82,708 78,561 78,377 79,945

May
55,896 57,579 57,279 68,846 70,508 67,565

June
50,181 49,977 53,753 59,995 60,953 62,012

¹ Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin.

² Excluding Alaska and Hawaii.

Table 7.9_Grapes: Utilization

Year Fresh market utilization Processed utilization Utilized
production

Juice Wine

Tons

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

1997
200 58,200 2,600 61,000

1998
400 67,500 2,500 70,400

Table 7.10_Grapes: Processed by variety

Year Variety

Concord Niagara Other Total

Tons

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

1997
45,200 13,400 2,200 60,800

1998
53,800 13,700 2,500 70,000

Table 7.11_Plums: Production and utilization

Year Total production Utilized production

Fresh Processed

Tons

1994
6,000 1,700 4,300

1995
7,500 3,300 3,700

1996
2,500 1,250 1,250

1997
4,000 1,500 2,500

1998
3,600 1,200 2,400

Table 7.12_Strawberries: Area, production, and value

Year Area Production Price
received Value of production

Planted Harvested Per acre Total

Acres Acres Cwt. 1,000 cwt. Dollars per cwt. 1,000 dollars

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

1997
1,600 1,500 65 98 75.60 7,411

1998
1,500 1,400 68 95 74.60 7,089

Table 7.13_Strawberries: Disposition and value

Year Fresh Market Processing

Production Price
received Value of production Production Price
received Value of production

1,000 cwt. Dollars per cwt. 1,000 dollars 1,000 cwt. Dollars per
cwt. 1,000 dollars

1994
81 70.00 5,670 18 35.00 630

1995
90 71.00 6,390 12 36.00 432

1996
56 78.00 4,368 4 36.00 144

1997
87 80.00 6,960 11 41.00 451

1998
82 79.00 6,478 13 47.00 611

Michigan Fruit Inventory There were 138,760 acres of fruit on commercial operations at the end of 1997. That compares with 143,250 acres at the end of 1994. The 1994 figure does not include strawberries, which were added to the fruit rotational survey in 1997. If the 1,400 acres of strawberries were excluded from the 1997 total, the decline in acres from 1994 to 1997 would be 5,890 acres (4.1 percent). The drop from 1991 was 9,640 acres (6.6 percent).

The number of fruit farms fell to 2,305, 231 less (9.1 percent) than in 1994 and 375 fewer (14.0 percent) than at the end of 1991. A commercial fruit farm was defined as having at least one acre of any single fruit species (or 0.1 acre of brambles or strawberries).

The geographic concentration of fruit varied substantially. The top five apple counties accounted for 60 percent of the total apple acres. The comparable figures for tart cherries and blueberries were 75 percent and 95 percent, respectively. The leading counties with fruit acres were: Van Buren, Berrien, Leelanau, Oceana, and Kent. They had 59 percent of the acres of fruit in Michigan.

Table 5.14_All fruit: Number of farms and acres by county and district
County and district	Total farms	Apples	Cherries, tart	Cherries, sweet	Blue- berries	Grapes	Peaches
Antrim	40	620	2,160	890	4	3	42
Benzie	38	1,200	1,250	340	5	21	9
Grand Traverse	127	1,100	4,450	1,850	5	210	23
Leelanau	182	2,300	7,850	4,000	0	200	45
Manistee	44	1,800	1,100	340	6	2	125
Charlevoix, Emmet	14	80	190	30	0	4	6
Northwest	445	7,100	17,000	7,450	20	440	250
Ionia	28	1,650	0	0	0	1	10
Kent	132	12,000	390	48	22	8	100
Mason	35	1,700	1,860	490	33	5	250
Montcalm, Mecosta	20	1,050	5	9	25	3	25
Muskegon	46	2,500	320	3	1,050	1	90
Newaygo	23	2,100	270	7	80	1	75
Oceana	114	3,600	8,050	530	110	20	1,350
Ottawa	157	4,200	205	43	4,910	1	100
West Central	555	28,800	11,100	1,130	6,230	40	2,000
Allegan	124	1,300	380	35	2,600	80	490
Berrien	431	7,100	2,550	135	940	5,800	2,400
Cass	27	1,050	350	5	15	640	45
Kalamazoo	26	450	170	5	45	380	15
Van Buren	367	7,100	1,880	70	6,700	4,500	550
Southwest	975	17,000	5,330	250	10,300	11,400	3,500
North	39	110	3	6	25	2	3
Saginaw Bay	40	130	22	8	125	4	17
Central	55	790	3	7	48	9	15
West Thumb	40	580	3	2	92	11	24
East Thumb	53	1,000	25	41	110	18	113
South Central	40	550	7	2	25	60	13
Southeast	63	940	7	4	25	16	65
East	330	4,100	70	70	450	120	250
State total	2,305	57,000	33,500	8,900	17,000	12,000	6,000

Table 5.14_All fruit: Number of farms and acres by county and district (continued)

County
and
district Plums Pears Brambles Apricots Nectar-
ines Straw-
berries State total

1994* 1997

Antrim
2 30 9 2 1 10 3,790 3,773

Benzie
25 16 5 1 0 1 2,925 2,873

Grand Traverse
65 48 8 1 1 8 7,841 7,769

Leelanau
230 28 7 8 1 30 14,141 14,699

Manistee
10 15 12 2 0 65 3,720 3,477

Charlevoix, Emmet
8 3 19 1 0 18 467 359

Northwest
340 140 60 15 3 132 32,884 32,950

Ionia
1 0 8 0 1 6 1,932 1,677

Kent
20 14 31 1 3 60 12,860 12,697

Mason
130 83 0 0 1 7 4,443 4,559

Montcalm, Mecosta
1 2 5 0 1 17 1,088 1,143

Muskegon
1 9 0 0 3 9 3,940 3,986

Newaygo
8 31 0 1 6 4 2,748 2,583

Oceana
190 250 4 13 1 35 14,655 14,153

Ottawa
24 1 2 0 4 30 10,087 9,520

West Central
375 390 50 15 20 168 51,753 50,318

Allegan
70 135 30 3 4 65 5,644 5,192

Berrien
190 95 150 20 95 160 21,602 19,635

Cass
16 1 9 0 0 63 2,197 2,194

Kalamazoo
4 4 1 0 0 2 1,168 1,076

Van Buren
220 95 50 4 6 90 21,242 21,265

Southwest
500 330 240 27 105 380 51,853 49,362

North
2 4 25 0 0 125 173 305

Saginaw Bay
2 11 10 1 0 75 338 405

Central
3 0 39 0 0 160 979 1,074

West Thumb
4 9 60 0 0 65 1,283 850

East Thumb
13 46 46 1 1 130 2,097 1,544

South Central
2 11 11 0 0 60 830 741

Southeast
9 9 29 1 1 105 1,060 1,211

East
35 90 220 3 2 720 6,760 6,130

State total
1,250 950 570 60 130 1,400 143,250 138,760

* Excludes strawberries.

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Michigan Agricultural Statistics Service

315 West Allegan Street, Room 201 * Post Office Box 20008 * Lansing, MI * 48901-0608 * (517) 377-1831

Facsimile: (517) 377-1829 * E-mail: nass-mi@nass.usda.gov * http://www.mda.state.mi.us/mass/

Table 7.2_Apples: Utilization and price
Year	Fresh market		Processing		Total utilization
Year	Quantity	Price received	Quantity	Price received	Quantity	Price received
	Million pounds	Dollars per pound	Million pounds	Dollars per pound	Million pounds	Dollars per pound
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	475	0.105	700	0.126
1997	300	0.150	700	0.076	1,000	0.098
1998	320	0.130	610	0.065	930	0.087

Table 7.3_Apples, processing: Utilization and price
Year	Canned		Frozen		Juice and cider		Other
Year	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
1994	255	0.081	110	0.090	325	0.050	10	0.050
1995	250	0.082	165	0.092	400	0.060	5	0.087
1996	200	0.110	125	0.125	140	0.080	10	0.085
1997	265	0.090	160	0.096	270	0.052	5	0.060
1998	230	0.080	130	0.090	240	0.038	10	0.050

Table 7.4_Blueberries: Utilization and price
Year	Production		Fresh market		Processed
Year	Total	Utilized	Quantity	Price received	Quantity	Price received
	Million pounds	Million pounds	Million pounds	Dollars per pound	Million pounds	Dollars per pound
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
1997	72	72	19	0.988	53	0.590
1998	49	55	16	0.860	33	0.500

Table 7.5_Cherries, sweet: Production and utilization
Year	Total production	Utilized production
Year	Total production	Fresh	Canned	Brined	Other ¹
	Million pounds
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
1997	54	1.0	1.6	43.0	8.4
1998	66	1.4	9.4	49.0	6.2
¹ Frozen, juice, etc.

Table 7.7_Cherries, tart: Production by region
Region	1994	1995	1996	1997	1998
	Million pounds
Northwest	100	160	140	140	186
West Central	53	97	35	70	59
Southwest and other	57	53	20	15	18
State total	210	310	195	225	263

Table 7.8_Cherries, tart: Stocks in cold storage
Month	East North Central region ¹				48 States total ²
	Crop year				Crop year
	1995	1996	1997	1998	1995	1996	1997	1998
	1,000 pounds				1,000 pounds
July	108,166	78,289	83,634	144,388	131,704	103,795	105,283	169,624
August	147,964	124,960	170,555	139,644	178,397	155,678	194,571	165,591
September	134,726	121,793	144,201	133,436	162,583	151,751	168,173	157,631
October	123,009	114,624	133,493	121,605	149,275	146,260	154,891	143,413
November	115,886	108,223	129,212	112,595	141,057	137,226	148,945	133,236
December	105,149	99,813	118,540	100,308	128,072	127,102	136,297	122,205
January	94,729	88,843	109,747	90,510	116,522	112,844	127,244	109,891
February	87,087	81,106	92,744	83,031	106,329	100,144	106,880	101,338
March	75,906	72,915	80,498	74,204	92,823	90,809	93,271	90,917
April	67,782	64,563	66,823	65,852	82,708	78,561	78,377	79,945
May	55,896	57,579	57,279		68,846	70,508	67,565
June	50,181	49,977	53,753		59,995	60,953	62,012
¹ Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin.
² Excluding Alaska and Hawaii.

Table 7.9_Grapes: Utilization
Year	Fresh market utilization	Processed utilization		Utilized production
Year	Fresh market utilization	Juice	Wine	Utilized production
	Tons
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
1997	200	58,200	2,600	61,000
1998	400	67,500	2,500	70,400

Table 7.10_Grapes: Processed by variety
Year	Variety
Year	Concord	Niagara	Other	Total
	Tons
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
1997	45,200	13,400	2,200	60,800
1998	53,800	13,700	2,500	70,000

Table 7.12_Strawberries: Area, production, and value
Year	Area		Production		Price received	Value of production
Year	Planted	Harvested	Per acre	Total	Price received	Value of production
	Acres	Acres	Cwt.	1,000 cwt.	Dollars per cwt.	1,000 dollars
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
1997	1,600	1,500	65	98	75.60	7,411
1998	1,500	1,400	68	95	74.60	7,089