North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["road's end farm" <organic101@linkny.com>]

On Wednesday, July 9, 2003, at 05:57 PM, Kevin Bradley wrote:

> Why are the Bing cherries so huge in the grocery store? They are three 
> times as large as what I remember sweet cherries to be and what I grow 
> at home.  I thought that perhaps the growers were using gibberilic acid 
> like they do on seedless grapes but the organic sweet cherries were 
> just as huge.

Are you sure they are Bing? Maybe it's a different variety. With 
strawberries I know what's usually seen in the stores is varieties bred 
to be huge; also to be hard and toughskinned so they ship well. Such 
strawberries are generally tasteless. If it's a variety characteristic 
it would probably be the same whether organically or conventionally 
grown; some varieties do better under organic or under conventional 
production, but a big shipping fruit variety will be a big shipping 
fruit grown either way. The "organic" label is now used by some very 
large companies shipping world wide, no longer only by small farms 
selling locally (though there are some of us left).