Production at 2,650ft is set to spur a longer season for Canada's northernmost commercial cherry grower, tapping into sales opportunities like the Moon Festival in China and scarce supply periods in North America.

British Columbia-based Jealous Fruits general sales manager Julie McLachlan told www.freshfruitportal.com the El Dorado block was 500ft higher than the company's highest cherry-growing operation.

"We are planting a variety from the Canadian breeding program called Staccato and the harvest there will be September 10-15," McLachlan said.

"It’s an exciting opportunity for us because to this date nobody has planted that high and nobody has been able to get into that mid-September marketing window."

The grower will be planting 40 acres of cherries on the block this April, and a possible 60 acres more in 2017.

"We're trying to minimize some of the risk. If we plant 40 acres and the trees don’t survive, it’s still a big capital outlay but it’s not as much as if we had 100 acres planted.

"We’ve got 100 acres at that block with an option for an additional hundred."

"We’ve had weather stations up there at the El Dorado farm for the last four years and we’ve had a very small test block up there for the last two winters – the trees have certainly survived and they’ve flourished," she said, adding Staccato had proven the most winter-hardy of five different varieties trialed.

The company has 100 acres on the El Dorado block and an option for another hundred.

She estimated that conservatively those 40 acres could produce 350 metric tons (MT), produced during a period when there would be "virtually no competition" from any other grower, anywhere in the world.

"So we're extending the season longer so that the next closest growing region would be going into Chile - we're just trying to have a marketing opportunity when there is no other fruit, so that will allow us to supply events such as Moon Festival or their [China's] national holiday which is October 1.

"And it will also allow us to run programs into Canadian Thanksgiving – it’s a tremendous marketing window for us."

China is Jealous Fruit's largest export destination, closely followed by the U.S. and then the U.K., but McLachlan said the highest elevation block would potentially have a range of market outlets.

"The Chinese market is important for us but we have very strong interest from our U.S. retail partners to extend their season, and certainly by extending their season it brings new dollars into the category that previously they didn’t have access to.

"We've got customers all over the world that would benefit. We ship to Paris, South East Asia, so it would certainly be a window that people are going to be clamoring for."

When asked about the upcoming cherry deal, she said it was too early to say because blossom wouldn't come for at least another four weeks, but there were some positive signs.

"What I can tell you is we’ve had very good chill hours over the fall and winter, so as a result we’re seeing a lot of fruit buds," she said.

"What we're seeing is a more normal  timing between our valley blocks and our high elevation blocks. To give you an example, in 2015 the season was very compressed so we only saw three to four days’ difference between our valley and high elevation blocks, and this year it’s looking to be more typical – I would say 7-10 days difference.

"All indications are that we’re going to have a much more normal timing than what we had in 2015. With normal timing we would start with our early varieties probably from July 7-10 and I’d expect the main harvest would start on July 20."

www.freshfruitportal.com