State specialist says this year’s crop is small, but sweeter than usual.
With the state in the peak of apple season, this year’s crop is expected to be smaller than normal with apples that are smaller, yet sweeter and crisper.
The crop “looks good this year, but there is not as much as we normally expect,” said Renae Moran, a state tree fruit specialist, on Wednesday.
Normally, about 800,000 bushels of apples are produced in Maine, she said. But this year she expects about 25 percent less.
There are two reasons the apple crop will be smaller, both in quantity and fruit size, she said. The weather during the blooming season was bad because of this year’s cold and wet spring. Also, apple trees are still damaged from the winter two years ago, a cold winter with no snow cover to protect the trees.
“The color looks good, and the apples taste great,” Moran said. “The season is right on track.”
Most of the apples grown in Maine have a sweet, tart flavor compared to Western varieties, she said.
Approximately 2,500 acres in Maine are in apple production, she said. The state has 45 major growers, and about 80 growers all together.
“The season is going fair,” Pam Harnden of Harnden’s Harvest Hutch in Wilton said Wednesday. “It was very late to begin with. Now we’re trying to play catch-up.”
The trees didn’t set as “we like to see” during bloom, which means there won’t be as many apples on the trees, she said. Normally, she starts selling early varieties of apples in mid-August, she said, but this year she didn’t start until late August.
A McIntosh apple normally is 2 to 3 inches in diameter, she said. But it’s 2 to 2 inches this year.
Besides the wet, cold spring, the dry August contributed to smaller apples.
Harry Ricker of Ricker Hill Orchards in Turner said that orchard’s crop of apples is “wicked” good, but it don’t have very many.
There will be plenty of apples for the orchard’s Maine customers, he said Wednesday.
Last year, it produced about 184,000 bushels, he said, and this year he expects it to be about 100,000 bushels. That means the orchard will have fewer apples to export, he said.
The apples are heavy and very crisp, he said.
In southern Oxford County, William Johnson of Apple Acres Farm in South Hiram said his apples are just starting to ripen, and the apples are starting to grow and sweeten up.
“We just started picking,” he said Wednesday.
He expects his crop to be about half of the 7,000 to 8,000 bushels he normally gets.
Moran said apple prices last year ranged from $40-$50 per bushel for the Honeycrisp variety to $12-$20 per bushel for McIntosh. The tree fruit specialist said she expects prices to stay about the same this year.
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