Sweet cherry growing in Turkey - a brief overview

The sweet cherry (Prunus avium L.) is native to some parts of northern Turkey. Turkey is the leading worldwide cherry producer and exporter, followed by USA. Sweet cherry is grown in the Aegean, Marmara, Mediterranean and Black Sea Regions in Turkey. Despite the recent growing interest in high density planting cherry orchards, cherry production is still carried out by using predominantly traditional methods with tall trees and local cultivars, without regular training, pruning and modern irrigation systems. The Turkish sweet cherry industry mainly relies on '0900 Ziraat' cultivar, known as the export cherry in Turkey. Turkey has a lot of valuable cherry gene resources because northern Anatolia is a center of origin. In Turkey, the most widely used rootstock is mazzard seedlings followed by 'Mahaleb'. Recently, modern orchards with high density have been established using the new cultivars, rootstocks, training systems and growing techniques. It seems that Turkey is changing from conventional to modern cherry production and will continue to be a leader in cherry production in the world.