Apple harvest starts early

Associated Press

SUTTONS BAY, Mich.

Apple-picking, a cherished autumn tradition, is off to an early start in the Northeast and Upper Midwest as growers deal with aftershocks from wacky spring weather that hammered fruit crops.

A series of below-freezing nights in April zapped buds that had sprouted during a rare summerlike stretch the previous month, decimating cherries, peaches and other tree fruits. Though some apple orchards escaped relatively unscathed, many are producing only a small fraction of their normal output, and some are coming up empty.

Michigan was hit especially hard. A harvest of perhaps 3 million bushels is expected, down from the usual 23 million or so, said executive director Diane Smith of the Michigan Apple Committee. The prolonged drought hasn’t helped matters but isn’t a leading cause of the drop-off, because apple trees have deep roots well-suited to reaching groundwater, she said.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture says the nationwide yield will be about 14 percent below last year’s and the smallest since 1986. A slight uptick in Washington, the top apple producer, and other Western states will help grocers compensate for the decline east of the Mississippi.

Across the Great Lakes region, which includes four of the nation’s top 10 apple-growing states — New York, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Ohio — fruit that survived is ripening weeks earlier than usual. It’s happening in parts of New England as well. For people who enjoy visiting orchards to pick apples or stopping by a farm market to buy a bushel and a jug of cider on a crisp fall weekend, the message from growers is simple: If you wait too long, you may lose out.