Orchardists are expecting the largest apple haul ever. Washington’s growers and packers have forecast a harvest of 140 million boxes of apples, easily topping the 2012 record of 129 million — an 8.5 percent jump.
“We’re expecting a good-sized crop of high quality this year,” said Jon DeVaney, executive director of the Yakima Valley Growers-Shippers Association, based in Yakima.
Warm spring weather and the proliferation of high-density orchards, which use trellises to pack more apples into an acre, have driven the growth, DeVaney said. Growers have not increased their acreage footprint in 20 years.
Industry groups released the official estimate late Thursday to their members, which comprise more than 90 percent of the growers and packers in the state. They have been anticipating a large harvest since spring, and tallying over the past few days proved them right.
The yearly estimate comes with the usual note of caution: Plenty can go wrong between now and November, when the last of the state’s apples come off the trees. Early frost, hail or too much more hot weather can harm apples.
A few Yakima Valley growers have started harvest, with Gingergolds among the first varieties. Galas, one of the Valley’s most popular apples, will be next, possibly sometime next week.
Apples are the state’s No. 1 commodity, with a $7.5 billion impact on the 2012 state economy, DeVaney said. Growing and packing apples account for 39,000 state jobs.
Fruit company officials generally lauded the quality of this year’s apples, though one small grower worried about the recent heat wave that took temperatures to 100 degrees and above. Apples require cool nights to convert starch into sugar and develop colour. With too much heat, trees start sucking nutrients back out of the fruit.
Another round of hot weather is expected next week.
This year’s large crop causes growers to fret even more than usual about finding enough employees for harvest.
“I would worry for the state whether we have the hands to capture and put away that much product,” said Keith Matthews, CEO of First Fruits Marketing, a Yakima sales firm for Broetje Orchards of Prescott, east of Pasco in Franklin County.
Each year, growers complain about a lack of seasonal workers. The 2013 labour shortage reached its peak of 8.5 percent in September, during the thick of the apple harvest, according to state Employment Security Department data. More growers have turned to an expensive and risky foreign guest worker program to fill the gaps.
As for sales, a large crop makes foreign exports even more important, industry officials said. Washington exports roughly 30 percent of its fruit, including apples.
“That impact is magnified as the crop gets bigger,” said Mark Powers, executive vice president of the Northwest Horticultural Council, which represents the fruit industry in trade and regulatory issues.
A few overseas ports have been unfriendly lately.
“There’s a lot of issues going on in the world in some of those markets,” said Howard Nager, vice president of marketing for Yakima’s Domex Superfresh Growers, which ships fruit to about 70 nations.
Last week, Russia banned all agricultural products from the United States and other Western producers due to the conflict in the Ukraine. China has not allowed U.S. apples since August 2012, citing sanitary concerns that American officials dispute.
India recently placed new labelling and testing regulations on food imports, creating a bottleneck for shippers moving the last of the 2013 Washington apple crop. Some have rerouted containers to other ports, an expensive and complicated chore, Powers said. “With perishable products, time is money.”
Mexico is Washington’s biggest foreign market, purchasing 13.7 million boxes of apples in 2012, followed by Canada, Taiwan, India and the United Arab Emirates.
Historically, United States customers have consumed 70 million to 75 million cartons of apples, said Todd Fryhover, president of the Washington Apple Commission, which markets Washington apples in foreign countries.
That could be tested this year.
In 2012, frigid weather in the East drastically curtailed harvests in Michigan, Pennsylvania and New York, giving Washington command of the domestic market.
This year, other U.S. growers will make their official forecast Aug. 21-22 at a Chicago convention, but many orchardists in Michigan and New York expect roughly normal-size harvests of about 30 million cartons, Fryhover said.
Meanwhile, European Union growers are expecting a 9 percent increase in their harvest this year, roughly at the same time as Washington.
In short, Yakima Valley warehouse sales teams, some working graveyard shifts to interact with grocery store buyers all over the world, have their work cut out for them. “If the state has something like a record crop, we still have to sell in that market and react in the same way,” said Matthews, of First Fruits.
