A new marketing and research group has consolidated the California cherry industry into one voice, says Chiles Wilson, chair of the new organization that became effective in early April. The California Cherry Marketing and Research Program supersedes the California Cherry Advisory Board, which had represented growers of Bing, Rainier, Van, and Lambert cherries since 1993. The advisory board was fragmented, said ­Wilson, a principal of Rivermaid Trading Company in Lodi. “Too much of the industry was not being represented through the advisory board,” he said during a phone interview with Good Fruit Grower. When the advisory board was first organized, […]