Michigan Grows Nearly Three-Quarters of the Nation's Tart Cherries (and Throws a 100-Year Party for Them)

If you’ve ever bitten into a tart cherry pie, odds are very good those cherries grew within a stone’s throw of Lake Michigan. According to USDA data shared by the Agricultural Marketing Resource Center, Michigan accounted for “nearly 74 percent of tart cherry production (NASS, 2022)” — and Michigan State University Extension puts it at “about 75 percent of the nation’s tart cherry crop.” (To picture the scale: in 2021, Michigan grew 96.6 million pounds of a 172.1-million-pound U.S. total.) The heart of it all is Traverse City — the self-proclaimed “Cherry Capital of the World.” The city’s airport is literally named Cherry Capital Airport.

Why here? It’s the lake. Lake Michigan acts like a giant temperature buffer, holding off late frosts in spring and cooling the orchards in summer. Cherry trees love it. The story goes back to 1852, when a Presbyterian missionary named Peter Dougherty planted cherry trees near Old Mission — locals thought he was crazy, and then the trees thrived. By 1900 the region was a cherry powerhouse.

That bounty gets celebrated every July at the National Cherry Festival, which began way back in 1925 as the “Blessing of the Blossoms.” Today it draws an estimated 500,000 visitors over its eight days for parades, air shows, pie-eating contests, and a cherry-pit-spitting competition. And here’s the timely part: 2026 marks the 100th National Cherry Festival, running July 4–11 in Traverse City. A century of cherries.