Rainfall brings gain for apples

STAFF/WIRE REPORTS
SALEM -- The summer's steady rains and moderate temperatures may have not been great vacation weather, but they did provide the perfect conditions for this year's apple crop.
Brian Eucker of Hartford Orchard in Trumbull County said some of the trees in his 100-acre orchard are so loaded with apples that he plans to tie up some of the younger trees this week to keep them from breaking.
"Some of those trees, there isn't room for one more apple," he said. "One more apple, and the trees would break."
"The apples are big, and the trees are loaded," said Bob Sage as he walked between rows of trees at his 25-acre orchard in Geauga County. "Those are the makings of a good year."
This year's crop is expected to be significantly better than last year's, when trees struggled during the summerlong drought.
The harvest is forecast at more than 2 million bushels, representing a 23 percent increase from last year, according to the U.S. Apple Association.
"If last year's crop was just half of what I have this year, it would have been a good year," Eucker said. "This year the apples won't be worth as much because everyone has apples. The best situation financially is when you have a great crop and everyone around you has smaller crops."
Getting ready
Matt Haus of Haus Red Apple Orchard and Cider Mill also works in purchasing at Salem Fruit Growers, a growers cooperative. The orchard and the cooperative are both in Green Township.
During the growing season, growers can buy supplies at the cooperative, Haus said. Once harvest begins, the cooperative stores, packs and sells the apples, he explained.
He said apple harvest in the area is under way, and several varieties will be ripe for picking in the next several weeks. Haus said growers will be picking apples in the region until mid-October.
Based on what he has seen so far, he agrees with the U.S. Apple Association's prediction. "We have a great crop," he said. Haus said the excessive rain in the spring and summer helped to increase the size of the apples.
Expectations
Earlier this spring, growers said they anticipated good apple crops because all the moisture would make the apples grow large.
For apples to reach harvest, the blossoms and the fruit had to survive the threat of early spring frost, too much or too little rain, wind and hail from thunderstorms, and pests. Growers said the potential for pests was high because of all the rain, and that soggy fields made it difficult to move in equipment to spray.
Eucker said he plans to try some new preservative products to keep the apples from spoiling. The rain caused many of the apples to be large, but the downside is that larger apples are harder to keep.
"Without all the rain, we'd still have a lot of apples, but we'd just have an abundant crop of smaller ones," he said.
Rankings
Ohio is second in apple production to Washington state, and it takes all the production of Ohio and the third through sixth top-producing states to equal the production of Washington, Eucker said.
A big problem for U.S. apple growers is that the United States has lost its spot as the No. 1 apple producer in the world to China.
"They produce the most apples in the world, but the people don't eat apples," he said. "They grow juice apples, and with wages at just a few cents a day, they flood our market with juice concentrates. They can produce juice concentrate and ship it here for about what it costs us to make cider."