Sweet cherry production in the U.S. has changed little over the last 100 years.
Most growers use standard, non-precocious rootstocks and prune to an open vase style system.
In contrast, new cherry orchards in western Europe are trained to allow for fast, easy harvest without the use of tall ladders. The driving force behind these changes in Europe is the high price of labor. Growers must pay pickers by the hour to harvest the crop, and this keeps productivity extremely low. For example, the average European worker, picking from a tall ladder, harvests an average of only 22 pounds of cherries per hour, compared to 75 pounds per hour for a picker in Oregon who is paid by the pound. European growers double the productivity of their pickers when trees are trained so that harvest can be accomplished without tall ladders.