Unseasonal Weather Spells Unfruitful Season for Cherry Growers : Agriculture: Winter heat wave and cool spring temperatures have devastated much of this year’s Leona Valley crop.

If this was a typical spring, Tom and Betty Wade would be getting ready to throw open the gates of their cherry ranch and let paying visitors fill their buckets with the sweet red fruit.

But thanks to this spring’s topsy-turvy weather, the Wades and many of their neighbors find themselves fruitless just as the “U-Pick” season in this valley--which has about 8,000 cherry trees on 35 ranches--usually begins.

Normally, these “U-Pick” ranches draw thousands of visitors from Los Angeles, Kern, Orange and Ventura counties.

The Wades, whose 20-year-old family orchard has more than 200 cherry trees, are declaring a 100% crop loss. Some of their neighbors have fared a bit better, seeing about half of their cherry crop survive. A few of the more fortunate growers in this scenic foothill community, just west of Palmdale, have managed to open and are offering some early ripening varieties.

Hot weather in late February and early March triggered an early bloom on the cherry trees, but on the heels of the heat wave came frosty nights and a rare Easter snowfall that devastated the fragile new fruit.

“You have these little green peas, and you’re waiting for them to get larger,” Betty Wade said, sighing. “They just don’t mature at all.”

The popular, later-ripening Bing cherries that managed to fight off the frost will not be ready at their usual time. Orchard owners are not expected to make these available for public picking until mid- to late June, about two weeks to a month later than usual.

Some longtime growers in the area say this year’s cherry crop may be the worst in 20 to 30 years.

“The little bit of fruit we have is not ripening,” said Joe Dymerski, who has about 60 cherry trees outside his Leona Valley home. “I’m not going to open this year. I have probably 20% of what I should have in a normal year.

“I’m going to harvest it myself and let the family have it.”

Like most Leona Valley growers, Dymerski runs the orchard as a hobby and a small side business--not the family’s main source of income. Most of these growers are retired or, like Dymerski, have a daytime job to pay the bills. Still, the trees need water, fertilizer, pruning and weeding--expenses that this year’s meager harvest may not cover.

“It doesn’t hurt me because it’s not my livelihood,” Dymerski said. “But it’s very disappointing. The same amount of work goes in, whether you have a crop or not.”

All fruit orchards are at the mercy of the weather and some losses are inevitable, said Gary Mork, a county agriculture inspector assigned to the Antelope Valley since 1976. But this spring, he said, has been particularly rough not only on cherries but on peaches, pears and apricots also grown in the area.

“I don’t remember seeing orchards completely wiped out, as I’ve seen this time,” Mork said.

The losses have varied dramatically from orchard to orchard, he added, because of slight differences in elevation and weather conditions. On the plus side, when fewer cherries are left to ripen on a tree, he said, the surviving fruit tends to be plumper.

Some Leona Valley ranchers expect to have enough Bing cherries for perhaps two or three weekends of picking. “Optimistically, half of them will be open to some extent,” said Mike Waters, president of the Leona Valley Cherry Growers Assn.

Waters, a retired Los Angeles County firefighter, estimates that his 500 cherry trees have lost between 40% to 50% of their usual crop. Even before the fruit formed, he said, the chilly weather hindered pollination, which is critical to cherry trees.

“It got cold, so the bees wouldn’t come out,” he said.

Cold weather--at the right time of year--is a key to Leona Valley’s usual success as cherry-growing area. In the winter, cherry trees need more than 1,000 hours at temperatures of 45 degrees Fahrenheit or less, Waters said.

Most of Los Angeles County never gets cold enough in winter to support cherry crops. But Leona Valley, tucked up against the mountains and no stranger to snow, provides a near-perfect climate for this fruit.

One of the first growers to find this out was Don Hobart, who planted 265 bare-root cherry trees on his 2 1/2-acre Leona Valley lot in 1959. Although a few neighbors had cherry trees for family use, Hobart said he was one of the first to open his orchard for public picking.

Others soon followed, and the town’s reputation as a cherry paradise grew. Leona Valley eventually began paying tribute to the crop with an annual spring parade. The growers also set up a cherry hot line, (805) 266-7116, which tells the public when the orchards are open and how to reach them.

Still, the yearly influx of cherry pickers doesn’t delight everyone in the sparsely populated community, which has fought to retain its rural character. Some residents have complained about the traffic jams and parking problems created by cherry pickers.

Even some of the growers say that this year, they won’t miss the crowds.

“I would rather have a slow day and be able to talk to everyone than have a busy day and not get to socialize with the customers,” said Greg Waters, who helped his father, the growers association president, plant the family’s orchard 20 years ago.

Longtime ranchers say they enjoy seeing the children and grandchildren of their original customers return for cherries each year.

“We’ve generated a good clientele, we have a great rapport with them and we look forward to seeing the people,” Betty Wade said. “It’s kind of like a giant reunion.”

But this year, she added sadly, “there isn’t going to be anyone coming in.”