I’m Steve Ember with the VOA Special English Agriculture
Report.
There is something hard to resist about cherries. The small
red fruit is a popular seasonal food around the world. In northern areas, cherry
trees are just beginning to produce flowers.
The cherry is a member of the same family of plants as the rose. It is
closely related to the plum. Like cherry trees, plum trees also flower in early
spring.
Cherries are thought to be native to western Asia. There are two major kinds
of cherries harvested in the world: sweet and sour.
Sour cherries are not eaten fresh because they contain little sugar. Instead,
they are processed to make prepared foods like jellies and pies and to make
alcoholic drinks. The United States is a major producer of sour cherries. Among
the states, Michigan is the top producer.
Russia, Poland and Turkey are other important cherry-producing nations.
Sweet cherries contain much more sugar than their sour relatives and are
usually eaten fresh. Washington state is the biggest American producer, followed
by California and Oregon.
The United States, Iran and Turkey are major producers
of sweet cherries. In the United States, production fell by 20% last year after
a record harvest in 2004.
Fresh cherries do not store well. They must reach market as soon as possible.
So they cost more than many other kinds of fresh fruit.
Farmers produce different kinds of cherries through the
process of grafting. They take cuttings from existing
trees and join them to related trees, known as root
stock. The cuttings, called scions
, grow into the root stock, so
the two kinds of trees grow as one.
Cherry trees are also valued for their springtime blossoms.
Cherry blossoms are popular in many parts of Asia and Europe. But Washington,
D.C., has some of the most famous cherry trees in the world. Japan gave the
United States three thousand cherry trees in nineteen twelve as a gift of
friendship. There were twelve different kinds of cherry trees, but most were a
kind called Yoshino.
Years later Japan gave another gift of three thousand eight hundred trees.
In the early 1980s, the United States provided Japan with cuttings from
the Yoshino trees in Washington. These cuttings helped replace Japanese trees
lost in a flood.
This VOA Special English Agriculture Report was written by
Mario Ritter. Read and listen to our reports at voaspecialenglish.com. I'm Steve Ember.
grafting :
嫁接
root
stock : 根莖
scion : （為嫁接剪下的）小枝
