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October 14, 1999 Iowa-grown
apples: Wet spring, dry summer DES MOINES, Iowa-- Iowans better hit orchards now if they plan to bob for Iowa-grown apples at their Halloween parties or eat Iowa apple pie after holiday dinners. This is because apples grown in-state won't be around as long this year. Orchard owners and officials at the Iowa Department of Agriculture do not suspect as many total apples in the state's harvest as in past years. Exact numbers, however, will not be available until after the harvest is complete, said agricultural statistician Rebecca Alter of the Iowa Department of Agriculture. "Some were expecting a good crop, but some weren't," Alter said. A harsh hailstorm in April, the early part of the growing season, wiped out chances for a crop that could have made a record-breaking season, some orchard owners said. Marywood Orchard in Indianola is the largest in the state and boasts 220 acres of apple trees. Part owners Ted Diehl and his daughter Wendy McGinnis said the hailstorm did not damage the demand for apples much, but did damage the production. "In normal years, we sell about 10 percent of our apples retail and the rest to grocery stores and the like," Diehl said. "But this year, we have a small crop, so we are selling 25-30 percent of our apples retail." Alter said the spring was too wet to spray apples, and the abnormally dry summer helped apple growers even less. Despite the conditions, it was easy as pie for some orchard owners, such as Bryan Etchen of Iowa Orchards in Urbandale, who said he had his best crop ever. "The size of our crop is just huge, and the apples are huge also," Etchen said. "We are selling way more than normal." Etchen said this year's success could be due to the orchard's switch from chemically thinning its apple trees to hand thinning. He said thinning is a process of picking clusters of apples until there is only about one apple every six inches. By keeping the weight of the apples light on the tree, Etchen said the tree could produce bigger, better apples. Diehl said Marywood did not do any thinning this year because the crop was just too small, but normally the orchard chemically thins its apples. "[Hand thinning] is much more labor intensive, but it gives you more control," Diehl said. "Lord willing, we'll have to thin next year." What about apples outside of the Des Moines area? Greg Badke, owner of the 50-year-old, 50-acre Community Orchard in Fort Dodge, said this year's crop is a "little lighter." "Quality isn't quite as good because of the hailstorm and the cold, damp weather during bloom," Badke said. "We'll be done [harvesting] this year between Oct. 20-25." Most orchard owners said they harvest apples from the beginning or end of July to the middle or end of October, with the exception of Marywood, which harvests from the middle of August to the middle of October. Alter said in 1998 there were 50 apple orchards in Iowa, which yielded a total of 8.7 million pounds of apples. Together, the orchards totaled over 1,700 acres. In the past three years, these numbers have gone up and back down slightly. This year, Alter --and others -- expect a slight decrease. This will especially be true when the Big Apple of Iowa apple orchards, Marywood, finishes selling much of its land to housing developers. Diehl said he and his family have owned the orchard since 1982 and are ready to move on. "We'll probably keep no more than 15 acres as orchard, but it just depends on how deep their pockets are," Diehl said. "I'm 65 years old and [selling the land] is easier money than employing pickers and other laborers every year. Those are just employment situations I don't look forward to anymore." Diehl said big-name brands like Washington and Oregon can ship apples from across the country year-round. So if the orchards empty just as Iowans begin their holiday parties and dinners, they could always opt for the out-of state apples. "Big-name brands have extra shipping costs that in-state orchards don't have," Diehl said. "And in the end, Iowa apples are always the freshest." |