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It occurs to me that folks who recently moved to the Old Mission Peninsula or Grand Traverse area might be unfamiliar with the mechanical harvesting of cherries. Before the advent of cherry shakers in the 1970s, cherries were hand-picked, mainly by Mexican migrant workers who showed up by the thousands every summer. I’ll write more about that in a separate story. There’s a lot to say about those hard-working pickers.
When cherry shakers came along, they sped up the harvesting process immensely. I was a teenager in the 1970s, and pretty much everyone in the family worked on the shaker crew, as well as a lot of our friends. Here’s a quick rundown of the cherry shaking process.
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This video shows a one-man cherry shaker in action. The driver is my nephew, Nick Johnson (my brother Ward’s son), who’s a great shaker driver. It takes a gentle touch, because you don’t want to shake a tree too long or hard, thus damaging it. This orchard is at Neahtawanta, one of the farms that Ward harvests as contract labor.
The shaker resembles a lobster as it approaches the tree, grips the trunk of the tree, and shakes the cherries onto a circular tarp.
The cherries are then rolled into a tank attached to one side of the shaker. Below is a full tank being dropped off and a new one put on by a forklift driver. You can see the cherries being rolled into the tank, at which point someone skims the tank for leaves and twigs. Badminton racquets work great for this. They’re lightweight and get the job done. And they’re lighter than a tennis racquet.
When the tanks are full, they’re loaded onto a truck and taken to a “cooling pad,” where they’re cooled down with water before being shipped off for processing. Here’s a forklift driver loading a truck in the orchard.
Below is one of the older cherry shakers in action. This one has a “catching frame,” which is pulled by a tractor through the rows in the orchard, stopping at each tree. “Tarps” are then rolled out underneath the trees (I’ve always admired tarp-pullers, because it’s a challenging job to do day after day, week after week). The tarps are then rolled back into the catching frame and the cherries rolled into a tank on the back of the frame, at which point the sorter uses their trusty badminton racquet to skim off the leaves and twigs.
This is the type of shaker crew I worked on as a teenager with the rest of my family, and all our friends had jobs as tarp pullers, sorters, truck drivers, etc. I started out skimming tanks on the back of the catching frame with my friend Sally Rogers. Then my mom, Mary Johnson, and I drove forklifts – she putting the empty tanks on the back of the catching frame; me taking the full tanks off and putting them onto the trucks to be taken to the cooling pad. Eventually, I ran the cooling pad and loaded the semi-trucks taking the cherries downstate to processing plants.
Here’s another view.
Sometimes there are cherry shaker refugees, like this little bird in my brother Dean Johnson’s hand (looks like a farmer’s hand, yeah?). When he set the bird down, it hopped off, so I’m hopeful it survived being shook out of a tree.
At the cooling pad, the cherries are firmed up by cooling them down with water.
Here’s a close-up view of the piping. My dad, Walter Johnson, designed an elaborate cooling system at the Johnson Farms cooling pad (which complexity has since been modified since he passed in 2004).
Here is Cory Reamer loading cherries onto a tanker to be shipped elsewhere for processing.

And because I can’t resist, here’s a photo of my brother Dean Johnson and his daughter/my niece Heatherlyn Johnson. Together, with help from many, they keep Johnson Farms rolling along.
Did you or do you work on a cherry shaker crew? Share thoughts and memories in the comments section below!
SUPPORT YOUR INDEPENDENT LOCAL NEWSPAPER: I started Old Mission Gazette in 2015 because I felt a calling to provide the Old Mission Peninsula community with local news. After decades of writing for newspapers and magazines like the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Family Circle and Ladies' Home Journal, I really just wanted to write about my own community where I grew up on a cherry farm and raised my own family. So I started my own newspaper.
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It is cool!
They really are quite the feat of engineering! -jb
LOVE theO.M.G Thanks Jane Beutler Boursaw.
Thank you! That’s actually my amazing sis-in-law, who runs the Peninsula Market, but she deserves all the love. Sometime I will write about the family of men who only marry women named Jane. 🙂 -jb
Too bad many farmers are going to dump them this year.
I know – it’s a crying shame they can’t send those cherries to folks who really need them. Heatherlyn said they’re actually taking out the orchard that would have been diverted, so at least there won’t be fruit on the ground.
What’s wrong – too many this year?
There’s what’s called a federal marketing order that anticipates how many cherries will be needed vs how many are on the trees. Wrote about it here: https://www.oldmission.net/2016/07/johnson-farms-cherry-harvest/
I remember seeing one in action!! 1996
Many fond memories of the reunion!
yankee ingenuity
Hear that, Patricia Jim Jackie Bud Stephanie? Time to resurrect the M.L.-Jane Dewitt friendly rivalry. 🙂 (tho let’s be clear, mom’s a southerner through and through.)
[…] sorting cherries and skimming leaves from the tanks on the back of the catching frame (more on that here), I carried along a little book on weeds so I could identify them in the orchard as I trailed that […]
Can I use this photo on your website in my book please? The very top one. I am writing a book about cars and trucks. I would like this photo to appear in my book. It is supposed to be below the subtitle “tree shaker”. Thanks a lot.
Hi Stephen – Would you send me more info about the book? And a link to your other published works and/or website, too? I’d be happy to check it out and get back to you. Email me at [email protected].
love to see how the whole process works. I have a home on the old mission and it is a joy to see all that happens on the farms and in our lovely community. Thank you for sharing!
Thanks, Ana! I was talking to my brother Dean this morning, and he said things are changing so fast on the OMP as far as the farming community. His generation of farmers are getting older, youngsters aren’t taking over the farms like back in our dad’s generation, and cherries aren’t a great economic crop like they once were… so it will be interesting to see what happens with all the farmland in the next generation or two. I’m going to do an interview with him and get his thoughts.
[…] here to see how the one-man shaker works, and here to see how the cooling pad/receiving station works. […]
Thanks Jane, I enjoyed the article with videos. Such an important crop put here.
[…] used on Johnson Farms. The first is called a one-man shaker. I wrote about that a few years ago here (I’ve got videos over there, […]
My Grandfather is Leland Gore. I used to go up to the farm on Old Mission and help harvest cherries every summer when I was in Jr High/High School. I always loved my time up there. Grandpa is a shy person, and the last person to brag about himself. But I’ve heard tell that he was instrumental in developing the earliest one man shakers. The farm is still alive today. My Uncle Mike rums it now I believe. I had some fond memories at that farm. Old mission is a slice of paradise
HELLO, really enjoyed your article. I actually was one of the many pickers in the 60’s that went up for the summer to pick cherries with my brothers and sisters. I lived in Bay City and my father would take us all up during the summer to pick cherries in Ludington. My parents were both from Mexico and settled in Michigan. Come summer they took us off the streets and put us to work; my fondest memories were all the kids I met from Texas during the summers and the bonding it created between my siblings. Thank you
[…] cherry shaker in action. To show you how fast things can change in just a few years, check out this story from several years ago to see how a one-man shaker works. I believe they’re still using the […]
[…] with that Case DO again, with a load of cherry lugs in front of the barn. Of course, there were no cherry shakers back then, so all the cherries were picked by migrant workers, and Dad would take his tractor and […]
[…] the tart cherries are shaken from the tree into metal tanks – here’s how a cherry shaker works – they’re then taken to the cooling pad, either by a truck or a forklift, if […]
[…] Here’s How a Cherry Shaker Works – VIDEO […]