密歇根新闻广播 怪天气和苹果需求导致密州北部樱桃园锐减

Fruit growers have a new problem: they can't buy enough young trees to plant in their orchards¹.

This is especially true for cherry farmers in Michigan who depend on nurseries in the Pacific Northwest. It could get worse, and some farmers are preparing for a day when they can't buy any trees.

Ben LaCross was supposed to be planting 6,000 sweet cherry trees this spring at his farm near Maple² City. He ordered the trees from a nursery in Oregon three years ago, but there was some unusual weather there that fall.

"They had a 24-hour period where it went from 40 degrees in the afternoon to -16 degrees overnight," he says "That just killed off millions of nursery tree stock."

So LaCross expects to get his trees next year.

This is a common story. Fruit growers everywhere are planning years in advance to get new trees.

Freezes, floods and winds have destroyed fruit trees around the country in large numbers. That's part of the problem, but Ben LaCross says the underlying³ issue is demand for apples.

Apples are popular at grocery stores, and farmers are planting smaller varieties of trees. That means apple farmers plant five or 10 times as many trees per acre than they did in the past. Commercial nurseries are struggling to keep up with that demand.

"The nursery people are businessmen, too," says LaCross. "They've got to plant for that demand, and they can't plant for a small specialty⁴ crop like cherries."

Do-it-yourself tree nurseries

Apples are grown just about everywhere in the U.S., but most of the nation's tart⁵ cherry crop is grown between Muskegon and Charlevoix.

Farmers here can still get cherry trees if they plan ahead. But Calvin Lutz, a cherry farmer near Kaleva in Manistee County, says that supply may not last.

"The nurseries out west have been talking about quitting growing Montmorency cherries," he says. "They've kind of geared their brain over to growing apples."

At the moment, about a third of Lutz's cherry orchards are old and need to come out. He says these blocks have already lost about half their trees, but he doesn't have the trees to replace them right now.

That's why he did something almost nobody does up north: he planted his own nursery.

It's tricky⁶ work with a low success rate. He has 14,000 seedlings⁷, mostly Montmorency cherries. Each one has a bud from an adult tree that is grafted⁸ by hand onto a rootstock. Nobody on his crew had ever done it before last fall.

Lutz thinks he'll save money even while he is learning. He says other cherry farmers think he's crazy, but he says they're also interested in what he's doing.

"They're waiting to see if I can actually do this," he says.

Not everyone is waiting. One of the largest cherry growers in the region has run a nursery since 2010.

Nels Veliquette is one of the owners of Cherry Ke, a family business that grows mainly tart cherries on 1,800 acres of orchards.

He says at that size, a nursery is not optional anymore.

"You cannot be reliant on another business to provide those trees for you," he says. "It just becomes a matter of necessity."

1 orchards   

（通常指围起来的）果园( orchard的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• They turned the hills into orchards and plains into granaries. 他们把山坡变成了果园，把平地变成了粮仓。
• Some of the new planted apple orchards have also begun to bear. 有些新开的苹果园也开始结苹果了。

2 maple   

n.槭树，枫树，槭木

参考例句：

• Maple sugar is made from the sap of maple trees.枫糖是由枫树的树液制成的。
• The maple leaves are tinge with autumn red.枫叶染上了秋天的红色。

3 underlying   

adj.在下面的，含蓄的，潜在的

参考例句：

• The underlying theme of the novel is very serious.小说隐含的主题是十分严肃的。
• This word has its underlying meaning.这个单词有它潜在的含义。

4 specialty   

n.(speciality)特性，特质；专业，专长

参考例句：

• Shell carvings are a specialty of the town.贝雕是该城的特产。
• His specialty is English literature.他的专业是英国文学。

5 tart   

adj.酸的；尖酸的，刻薄的；n.果馅饼；淫妇

参考例句：

• She was learning how to make a fruit tart in class.她正在课上学习如何制作水果馅饼。
• She replied in her usual tart and offhand way.她开口回答了，用她平常那种尖酸刻薄的声调随口说道。

6 tricky   

adj.狡猾的，奸诈的；(工作等)棘手的，微妙的

参考例句：

• I'm in a rather tricky position.Can you help me out?我的处境很棘手，你能帮我吗？
• He avoided this tricky question and talked in generalities.他回避了这个非常微妙的问题，只做了个笼统的表述。

7 seedlings   

n.刚出芽的幼苗( seedling的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Ninety-five per cent of the new seedlings have survived. 新栽的树苗95%都已成活。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• In such wet weather we must prevent the seedlings from rotting. 这样的阴雨天要防止烂秧。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

8 grafted   

移植( graft的过去式和过去分词 )； 嫁接； 使（思想、制度等）成为（…的一部份）； 植根

参考例句：

• No art can be grafted with success on another art. 没有哪种艺术能成功地嫁接到另一种艺术上。
• Apples are easily grafted. 苹果树很容易嫁接。