Cherry Problems

So I was visiting my parents a couple of weeks ago and they mentioned their cherries were nice and early.
It was a little dark out but I found a few and they were good.
Next day a few customers came out and commented on all of the "melting" cherries!
Went back out and inspected all of the trees and sure enough something was going on.

Through some online research I think I can rule out fungal infections...
I really am just at a loss.
Maybe 80% of every tree,  the fruit is on the verge of rotting due to others in the bunch or everything is bad altogether.

Important things I took note of:
Obviously very warm spring, very early.

Chickens have somewhat recently been moved into the cherry orchard for a few different reasons.
I took note of this because there seemed to be an abnormal amount of flies and larva absolutely having a feast on those trees (unhygienic conditions?)

I have some theories and I would love to hear what you guys have to say.

That sounds like it could be brown rot, which spreads fast in warm humid conditions and can take out most of a crop in a few days. The fruit goes soft and mushy from the inside. If that's what it is, removing all the affected fruit quickly is the main thing, including any that have dropped, as they'll keep spreading spores. Worth looking up photos to see if it matches what you're seeing.

I agree with brown rot which is fungal. As mentioned, remove affected fruit and dispose of by bagging/trashing.

Make a spray:

Ingredients:
1 gal water, 1 T dish soap, 1 T baking soda.

I put it in a spray bottle to make applying it easy.

Some recipes call for adding oil.

Evan Merlin wrote: Chickens have somewhat recently been moved into the cherry orchard for a few different reasons.
I took note of this because there seemed to be an abnormal amount of flies and larva absolutely having a feast on those trees (unhygienic conditions?)

Does anyone know if the chickens as "clean-up" committee will do a good job? Certainly, they will help the fly population, so hopefully stop the fungus from spreading further?

I have chickens, but I've never had this problem with fruit, so I'm wondering.

Joao Winckler wrote:That sounds like it could be brown rot, which spreads fast in warm humid conditions and can take out most of a crop in a few days. The fruit goes soft and mushy from the inside. If that's what it is, removing all the affected fruit quickly is the main thing, including any that have dropped, as they'll keep spreading spores. Worth looking up photos to see if it matches what you're seeing.

So I had talked myself out of the brown rot simply because when I look at pictures online, I don't see the moldy, spore look to them.
But the more I look I feel like it was just starting to take off. Still had the bruising, browning look.

Maybe I just caught them in the early stages and therefore didn't see all of the molding and whatnot going on?
Anyways thank you for the info and I will see what we can do to salvage this.

Well my Dad swears this is not brown rot.
He's seen that in the past (peaches).
He plans on visiting the local agricultural office sometime soon.
If he ever makes it out there and gets a concrete answer I will keep you guys updated.

Evan Merlin wrote:Well my Dad swears this is not brown rot...
If he ever makes it out there and gets a concrete answer I will keep you guys updated.

Yes, please do. Regardless of what it is, many of the suggestions above may still be applicable.