Skeena cherries came off this tree, leaving only their stems. Critical to the potential for mechanically harvesting stem-free sweet cherries is understanding consumers’ perceptions of the fruit and their willingness to purchase stem-free cherries. In recent years, the sweet cherry research program at Washington State University’s Irrigated Agriculture Research and Extension Center in Prosser conducted consumer surveys assessing the significance of stems. These surveys constitute one aspect of a larger project investigating the potential for mechanical harvest of fresh-market-quality, stem-free sweet cherries. In 2005, an appearance/ taste test compared consumers’ response to Bing cherries with and without stems in Calgary, […]