ORIGINAL ARTICLE https://doi.org/10.1007/s10341-019-00465-x Erwerbs-Obstbau Evaluation of Economic Structure of Cherry Growing in Turkey Mevlüt Gül 1 · M. Göksel Akpinar 2 · Vecdi Demircan 1 · Tufan Bal 3 · Hasan Yilmaz 1 · Şerife Evrim Arici 4 · Mehmet Polat 5 · Murside Çağla Örmeci Kart 6 · Musa Acar 7 Received: 14 March 2018 / Accepted: 29 November 2019 © Springer-Verlag GmbH Deutschland, ein Teil von Springer Nature 2020 Abstract Cherry production has a vital role regarding income source for producers and export sources for Turkey. In Turkey, several studies have done regarding the technical practices, and most of them were not considered the economic dimension of cherry production. This research aimed to determine the production inputs, costs and profitability of cherry production. This study aims to reveal the relationship between orchard size and profitability by using general economic calculations based on Afyonkarahisar, Denizli, Isparta, ˙ Izmir, Konya and Manisa provinces, in Turkey. It is assumed that this study may be able to close the existing gap regarding other studies in the literature to a certain extent. This study support that more prominent cherry orchards had higher profits compared to smaller. The relative profit varies between 2.2 to 3.0 in the farm size groups. In this study, it was found that relative profit is the highest in the bigger-scale orchards. The most crucial problem for producers is to achieve a profitable cherry selling price. This study found the output/input ratio is high. Orchard size and production cost have a significant influence on the economic success of a cherry orchard. Production cost has a negative influence on profitability with a low cherry yield. In other words, cherry production is profitable in the research region, but some recommendations can be made within the framework of research findings to get better. Keywords Profit · Cost · Labour · Production · Orchard size Evaluierung der Wirtschaftsstruktur im Kirschenanbau der Türkei Schlüsselwörter Gewinn · Kosten · Arbeitskräfte · Produktion · Größe der Obstplantage Mevlüt Gül mevlutgul@isparta.edu.tr, mevlutgul@yahoo.com 1 Department of Agricultural Economics, Faculty of Agriculture, Isparta University of Applied Sciences, 32260 Isparta, Turkey 2 Department of Agricultural Economics, Faculty of Agriculture, Akdeniz University, Antalya, Turkey 3 Antalya, Turkey 4 Department of Plant Protection, Faculty of Agriculture, Isparta University of Applied Sciences, 32260 Isparta, Turkey 5 Department of Horticulture, Faculty of Agriculture, Isparta University of Applied Sciences, 32260 Isparta, Turkey 6 Department of Agricultural Economics, Faculty of Agriculture, Ege University, 35100 Bornova/Izmir, Turkey 7 Eskil Vocational School, Aksaray University, Aksaray, Turkey Introduction Agriculture is still Turkey’s most prominent employ- ment sources and an essential sector for GDP. Turkey has favourable weather for growing many vegetables and fruits. Among these, cherry is a significant fruit for the Turkish economy (Kizilaslan 2009). Cherry production has a vital role regarding income source for producers and export sources for Turkey. The cherry exports in Turkey increase day by day thus, 12% of cherry production has been the subject of exports in the last decade. Also, nowa- days with the growing consumer awareness and demand for more healthy production cherry is getting more important for Turkey’s agriculture. In Turkey, cherry production was approximately 438.6 thousand tons, in 2011; according to 1980, data has in- creased by 3.5 times over the period. Turkey occupies 19.6% of the world total cherry production. Cherry ex- port from turkey reached 46.5 thousand tons of cherry K