The idea of growing sweet cherries as a forestry crop seems entirely unusual. After all, it is a delicacy that does not even want to grow in every Latvian garden! Well then, if cherries do not want to produce fruit, perhaps they make good timber trees? Everyone who has been to the Upītis garden in Dobele has seen how enormous – both in height and girth – cherry trees can grow. To make harvesting cherries convenient, their desire to grow must be significantly restricted.

But what if that were not done? In Western Europe, the mountains of Central and Southern Europe, and the Middle East, where sweet cherries grow in the wild, their height exceeds 20 metres. You can see just how thick cherry trees can grow in those farmsteads in Kurzeme and Zemgale where a huge cherry tree has provided shade for decades.

Yet, sweet cherry wood is considered very valuable. It is relatively hard, flexible, easy to work with, and takes polish, stain, and varnish well. It is used mostly in the furniture industry, even replacing mahogany and other precious woods. In Europe, sweet cherries started being grown specifically for timber production as early as the 1950s.