HOOD RIVER, Ore. -- Fruit orchardists in the Hood River Valley are keeping their fingers crossed that the warm weather keeps up.

They want to make up for the week and a half lost during the late, cold spring.

There’s no doubt about it, the pear blossoms lining the hills are beautiful. But by now, the blossoms on the trees should be long gone.

"The pear bloom was really late this year. It was probably 10 days late,” said Scott Hagee of the Pheasant Valley Orchard.

Hagee came to Hood River 30 years ago to help his brother with the pear and apple harvests. He never left.

"You always cross your fingers and hope that'll continue and things will catch up,” he said.

The late spring set the fruit behind, and in Hagee’s business, time is money. Fruit was late last year, too.

"It's similar to last year, so we could have smaller fruit. This is the first two years I've seen it back to back like this,” Hagee said.

About 30 miles away, Jeff Heater grows cherries in The Dalles.

"There's a big cherry crop throughout the Northwest and so you want to do everything you possibly can to get as much market as possible," Heater said.

He's been in the cherry business for 20 years.

"With a little bit of a late season, if we don't have great big promotions lined up like we normally do around the Fourth of July, those just need to be shifted a little bit later," Heater said.  

Normally, major grocery stores buy his cherry pallets to sell around Independence Day.

This year, the cherries might not even be ready in time.

"Last year, The Dalles area and Hood River had maybe a third of a crop and this year we're looking at a huge crop, and everybody's happy about that, but my biggest concern is timing and marketing,” Heater said.

That’s not all.

Some apple and pear orchardists are worried the cold, late spring will make it harder to acquire and retain pickers during the harvest.

"It does make for a tougher harvest. Our labor is moving on and going to Washington to pick," said Hagee.

Whether they’re growing cherries, pears, peaches or apples, one thing all orchardists have in common is that they’re all at the mercy of the ever-changing weather.

"This year, we're waiting to see what happens, we're rolling the dice right now,” said Heater with a laugh.

"The weather plays an important part. You're a prisoner to it; a slave to the weather," said Hagee. “You just scramble. You do what you can. If you worry about it, you're not going to do this job. So, you just do what you can, do everything you can everyday and that's it," he added.

The Dalles and Hood River produce about 9,000 tons of cherries each year, said Heater.

Farmers in the Hood River Valley care for more than 2 million fruit trees, or about one-third of the fruit trees in the entire state of Oregon.