In the future, cherry growers might be able to use a degree-day model to calculate exactly when to protect buds from high temperatures in order to reduce cherry doubling the following season. Doubling is caused by high temperatures sometime during a six-week period when flower buds are differentiating and the flower pistils are going through their initial growth period. Dr. Matt Whiting, horticulturist with Washington State University in Prosser, who is researching cherry doubling with funding from the Washington Tree Fruit Research Commission, is hoping first of all to pinpoint the critical timing and temperatures that lead to double cherries. […]