2024 Apple Crop Outlook
We reached out to experts in apple growing to get a look at the 2024 Apple Crop Outlook. Check out what these experts from around the U.S. had to say about this year’s apple crop.
David Glaize, Glaize Apples, Winchester, VA
August 15: The Virginia apple crop dodged some early frosts in the spring of 2024. We had terrific pollination weather and fruit set was strong. We suffered a severe drought in July/August which has kept the apples small, and is stressing the trees, especially the newly planted blocks. Some of the older trees are showing wilted leaves and have begun dropping fruit. However, rain and colder temps are starting to move in. The crop is looking good, and we will hopefully continue to get more size and color, although harvest did come slightly earlier than in years past. Virginia will harvest a good size crop this year, although acreage of processing fruit is still being pushed out due to a weak market.
Marcus Robert, Tieton Cider Works, Yakima, WA
August 5: Apple crop in Washington State looks promising with near-average volumes. Most areas avoided damage from spring frost and return bloom on most varieties was healthy. Biannual bearers, like Golden Delicious and Honey Crisp, look to have small yields this year. All in all, the state is predicting 120-125 million box crop. This is down from the previous season of 134 million boxes but much higher than 2022’s crop of 104 million boxes. Although sales volumes have been higher than previous years, at the current rate of sales WA State looks to have 8 weeks of inventory from 2023 in storage as of the date of this report, August 5, 2024. New crop will start harvest in the next few weeks.
Gregory Peck, Cornell University, New York
July 24: The cider apple crop in New York is shaping up to be one of the best in recent years. After a few years of freeze events and disease outbreaks, it’s nice to see so many apples (and pears!) throughout the State. New York had a couple of scary mornings on April 24 and 25 when many apple varieties had already reached bud break and the temperature dropped to the low 20’s, but thankfully there was minimal damage to most orchards. There has been adequate precipitation and plenty of heat this summer to help size up the fruit. A warm spring led to an early bloom, which means that growers and cider producers should anticipate apples to ripen a week or more early this year. Additionally, some farms had a spotty fruit set on a few varieties, and so cider producers will need to be creative about which apples to blend to create their established products. Although harvest is still more than a month away, there should be plenty of high-tannin and other specialty cider apples available for the State’s craft producers and for others looking to purchase New York grown cider apples.
Megan Muehlbauer, Rutgers University, New Jersey
July 15: The spring of 2024 was a normal one. Phenology moved along as expected. There were no significant freeze events in New Jersey, which is in part why there is a very heavy crop set at most farms. The greatest concern right now is the hot dry weather, which has lead to some leaf hopper issues and the potential for sunburn of the fruit. Growers have had to irrigate a bit this year since the rains have been sporadic and spotty.
The dry weather has helped to minimize the disease pressure, so diseases are being well controlled.
Jake Mann, Five Mile Orchard, Pajaro Valley, CA
June 20: Greetings from the Pajaro Valley. I’m writing this on the summer solstice, and so far (knock on a tree-trunk) the outlook for our 2024 apple crop looks promising. Nice fruit set. Not super loaded, but not sparse.
The 2023 harvest (as predicted) was the worst we’ve seen in the past decade (and according to those before me, EVER) Low fruit set, and subsequent aphid damage took us down close to a 50% yield compared to normal years. A few fortunate turns did help: summer temps were mild, so the fruit didn’t burn, we were able to do a lighter irrigation due to the accumulated precipitation from the ’23 floods, and our steady picking crew got everything harvested. We did miss out on some sales, for not having the quantity / quality of certain varieties.
While we shook our heads, put the budgets under a microscope, and tried to look past the ’23 disaster, winter delivered a fantastic amount of precipitation and chilling hours. (We escaped the weird February heat wave that was becoming more common too, so no early bud activity.) Bloom was gorgeous, a bit later (as with the past couple years). Some of our delayed dormant sprays were going out in mid April. (usually completed by spring equinox around here) No major apple scab events or pest outbreaks to chase through the sensitive spring months, which has been a relief.
Irrigations will begin in mid-July. We’ll keep our eyes on that first Gravenstein harvest date in mid August that carries us into (hopefully) an even-tempered, plentiful picking season… with a full cooler, and lots of heirloom fruit off to our customers up and down the west coast. Looking forward to meeting up with a big number of California Cidermakers at the Central Coast Cider Festival in Atascadero on August 24th!
Nik Wiman, Oregon State University
June 18: It has been a cool spring here in Western OR. Bloom and fruit set was excellent and we are seeing a huge apple crop and we are trying to get it thinned down right now. Not expecting much fire blight but we are seeing some scab. We will have a field day this September to showcase our cider orchard.
Renae Moran, University of Maine
June 12: Bloom and Fruit Set – The freezing temperatures that occurred before bloom did not appear to have an impact on flowers other than a few Honeycrisp king blooms which were dead at the time of inspection.
Bloom occurred about one week ahead of the average time, occurred May 18 for McIntosh and May 20 for Honeycrisp at the UMaine research station in Monnouth. Full bloom was a few days later in northern Maine. Most trees had an abundance of bloom. Pollination conditions were favorable most days, but a few days of temperatures above 85 °F occurred which can interfere with fertilization. Fruit set has been very heavy in most trees. As of June 12, some chemical thinning appears to be working, but fruit set is still too heavy in Honeycrisp and some other varieties.
Tree Survival – A few apple tree deaths have occurred at the UMaine research station. Cause of apple tree death is most likely too much rainfall last year.
Nikki Rothwell, Michigan State University Extension
June 11: The Michigan apple crop is shaping up to be another big one this year. This situation is slightly unusual in that this crop is sizable after following two previous seasons with big crops. We had a mild winter for Michigan, which was coupled with a warm spring. We did not see the usual ups and downs that are typical in spring here in our state—no spring frost/freeze events that have the potential to reduce the crop size.
We had lots of accumulations of growing degree days this spring, so we are 7-10 days ahead of ‘normal’. In addition to warm conditions, we have had ample rainfall this spring. Tree growth has been tremendous, and fruitlet size is already 20mm and it is just early June. Growers have been aggressively thinning trees down to the optimal crop load for the trees, and we have had a run of cooler weather during this thinning window. Cool weather at thinning time can result in trees setting too large of a crop, so there may be some hand thinning activity later in the season.
Disease issues are still under control despite the wet weather. Wet and warm conditions favor fungal development, and growers have been diligent about disease control this spring. We have observed little apple scab in orchards thus far. Powdery mildew seems more prevalent this year, which is unusual as this disease prefers hot and dry, but we think there was ample inoculum in the orchard from last year, so this disease got a toe hold in some orchards this current season.
Every season is different, and 2024 is no exception. Although we have a ways to go until harvest, Michigan is off to a great start!