🔒Apple growers anticipate good crop, minimal damage from Irene

Despite some damage from Tropical Storm Irene, experts predict that Maine orchards will produce apples at an average or tad-above-average volume of approximately 1 million bushels this year. The good news comes following one of the worst seasons for apples in recent years due to a late frost in 2010.

While Irene’s winds caused Maine orchards to lose approximately 10% of their fruit, the lack of major damage to crops came as a relief to growers in western Maine like Tom Gyger, owner of Five Fields Farm in South Bridgton, who feared he would have to face another difficult year as a result of Irene’s path.

“Things could have been dramatically worse, as witnessed in Vermont. Right now if everything goes well, Five Fields Farm will be alright,” says Gyger, who picked a portion of the seven varieties of apples he grows just before the storm hit to avoid losses. “There may be bruising to the apples from Irene, but it’s too early to tell.” Irene came early enough in the season that most of his apples stayed firmly attached to the trees.

Owners of Maine’s 70-plus orchards are joining Gyger in a collective sigh of relief. An early May killer frost last year destroyed many of the fruit blossoms, clobbering about 75% of the state’s orchards. Although the damage varied according to individual orchard elevation and location, it dropped Maine’s apple production to only 702,000 bushels, according to the United States Department of Agriculture, which gathers statistics from orchards with at least 100 trees. At about $17.50 per bushel, the 2010 value of apple production — $11.7 million — was the state’s lowest since 2006. Its most recent peak came in 2007, when 952,000 bushels yielded almost $15 million.

 “Growers lost money last year, but this year there is an abundant crop of apples and that will help,” says Renae Moran, associate professor of pomology at the University of Maine at Orono. “The price will change with time and supply.”

It won’t be fully clear if this will be a successful year for apples until the harvest finishes in October.

“We will be monitoring apple ripening over the next few weeks and reporting it to commercial apple growers,” says Moran, who conducts tree fruit research at Highmoor Farm, a Maine Agriculture and Forest Experiment Station and the university’s cooperative extension in Monmouth. “Bad things can still happen that destroy the crop, or labor problems can prevent some growers from getting the apples harvested.”

On Maine’s 3,100 acres of apple orchards, flower buds that formed over the summer will sit in a dormant state through the winter, bloom in spring, and finally grow into apples by fall next year. In 2010, a warm spring prompted an early bloom before three nights of freezing temperatures caused the vulnerable blooms to wilt and fall off. Growers did what they could to recover.

Greg Sweetser, who helps his parents, Dick and Connie, run Sweetser’s Apple Barrel and Orchards in Cumberland, recovered from the 2010 frost by supplementing his crop with apples from a number of partnering orchards in the region.

“Last year’s freeze did destroy many of the fruit blossoms and certainly reduced our harvest. Our closest orchard neighbor and to some degree, our competitor, Orchard Hill in Cumberland, was able to provide us with a limited supply of apples early in the season,” says Sweetser, who grows and sells 39 varieties on six acres, with no pick-your-own option. “Several other orchards filled in other varieties, which allowed us to retain our customer base. We were able to offer rare varieties in limited quantities.”

This year’s bloom took place at the normal time, in late May. But Moran says there’s a chance the impact from Irene could end the apple season early. Still, the apple forecast remains positive for now. 

“The crop this year is larger than normal, likely because last year’s frost reduced our crop and led to very strong fruit bud development this spring,” says Sweetser. At Sweetser’s Apple Barrel and Orchards, utility-grade cooking apples are selling for between 50 cents and $1 a pound, which is average for Maine. The high-quality apples sell between $1.25 and $1.75 per pound, depending on size, and the largest specialty apples like Honey Crisp can command from $2 to $3 per pound.

“Our prices have remained very stable over the past several years,” says Sweetser. He expects to see an increase in sales, specifically in cooking-grade apples.

“There is a lot of media attention on cooking, buying local produce and the satisfaction of [making] homemade products, which generates more interest in the marketplace,” says Sweetser.