Northwest Cherries estimates it will ship 3.7m (20lb equivalent) boxes of produce in August this year, almost doubling the 2m it sent in the same month of 2010.
The cooperative's prediction partly reflects the late start to the current season, which pushed backed the first picking date into the middle of June.
In total it believes it will ship 16.8m boxes this season, which would be the second-highest result since 2001, but well short of the 20.5m boxes it sent in 2009.
The ten-year August average shows the month usually sees around 8 per cent of a season's total crop shipped, but this year it is anticipated that more than 22 per cent of the total shipped crop will leave the Northwest in August.
