PERU — Innovations such as bold new varieties, dwarfing root stocks and dense plantings on trellises all bode well for the future of the North Country apple industry, but first local orchardists must make it through this year.
A mild winter coupled with extreme early spring warmth have combined to spur what may be the earliest blooming season ever in the Champlain Valley, a major cause for worry as one hard frost between now and late May could jeopardize the entire crop.
Last week's snowfall was a nuisance that interrupted planting and kept orchardists from their fields, but it was a close brush with freezing temperatures that had them worried most.
"We got very close," said Mason Forrence of Forrence Orchards Inc. in Peru, who said he had a 31-point-something degree reading mid week in the main part of his orchard where blooms are popping out.
"At 28 for any length of time, it will take 90 percent of the buds out. You're only working with a few degrees, so it's getting pretty scary."
Forrence said the bloom in his orchard is as much as two to three weeks premature. "It's certainly the earliest I've ever seen it," he said, adding that he believes it's the earliest his father ever saw it as well.
Growers don't start getting comfortable about avoiding the risk of frost until about May 20, so there are nearly three weeks to get through before they can relax.
The mild winter with mere single digits below zero and less frost in the ground also caused the trees to bud out early.
"That's what partly led us into the early spring. When the weather did break, everything was about ready to go," Forrence said. "We could have grown peaches this year."
If the crop makes it through, harvest could also be earlier this year, which could create still more problems.
"It's all a matter of color," Forrence said. "We like a late bloom because it puts us back farther in September."
It takes warm, sunny days and cool late-summer nights to turn the crop to its marketable red-colored best, and a premature ripening prevents that from happening. However, cooler-than-average weather during the summer could slow things down and put the timetable back on track, and there are so many unknowns that the end result is not something Forrence is ready to predict.
"If you got the Wall Street Journal a day early, you'd be rich," he said.
IMPROVING CROP
Meanwhile, many experiments are being conducted in the North Country to improve the quality, variety and profitability of the apple crop. For example, high-density apple orchards trained to the "tall spindle system" can produce six times more apples than older-style orchards during the first five years and produce almost double the yield when the orchard is mature.
The Northern New York Agricultural Development Program and the New York Farm Viability Institute are funding research to evaluate the opportunity for regional apple growers to modernize their orchards with these high-density systems.
Project leader Terence Robinson, a horticulture sciences professor with the Cornell University Agricultural Experiment State in Geneva, said these techniques will help growers improve production efficiency, yield and fruit quality as well as grow new varieties to remain competitive in the world apple market.
In addition to Forrence, Robinson is working with Everett Orchards in Peru and Chazy Orchard in Chazy. The research is being conducted in collaboration with Cornell University and the Cornell Cooperative Extension Northeastern New York Commercial Fruit Program. The research is evaluating pre-plant site and variety selection, land preparation, rootstock spacing, training systems, fertilization, irrigation, pruning and thinning using five different orchard systems of spacing, maintenance and trellising.
Densities in the systems range from 218 trees per acre to 1,307 trees per acre. The research results also will provide growers with data on opportunities to reduce labor costs through mechanization and could increase yield and profit.
Cost data for capital and equipment requirements for the five systems will also be developed. "The manner in which a grower pieces together the many decisions that form his orchard system often defines this economic success," Robinson said. "Successful replanting of old orchards with popular new varieties in high-density orchard systems will help the long-term viability of the Northern New York fruit industry."
ROOTSTOCKS
Researchers and growers are also evaluating new rootstocks for winter hardiness as well as for dwarfing. The severe winter cold in 2002 killed more than 20,000 trees on a rootstock that was being widely used in the Champlain Valley. The new rootstocks include 17 bred by the Cornell Geneva apple rootstock breeding program and some from Germany, England, Russia, Canada and Poland, along with 16 of the leading dwarfing rootstocks in Northern New York.
Forrence agreed that denser plantings on smaller trees can increase yield and cut the cost of production. Picking, spraying and pruning are all more efficient and easier.
"There is also a much higher quality of fruit coming off of it," he said.
This is because sunlight will only penetrate within a certain distance into the canopy of a large tree, but a small tree has far more surface area where the fruit can catch the sunlight. There is also less bruising than when fruit is picked from the top of a large ladder or falls to the ground.
"That's a major concern," Forrence said. "Also, we can bring them into production more quickly."
However, Forrence said, the conventional wisdom that huge yields can be generated this way comes with some drawbacks.
"The bottom line is, the apple business is not only big yields, it's good size," he said.
Growers need a 3-inch apple for best profitability, and sometimes large yields can mean smaller apples, and "smaller apples don't bring you the money," Forrence explained.
He said his father began the orchard planting about 40 to 70 full-sized trees per acre.
"We worked up from 70 to 120 to 340," he said, adding that he's settled at about 520 per acre for optimum spacing. Returns come soon, after four or five years, with the smaller trees.
"All the dwarf trees have a shallow root stock, so they require a support system," Forrence said.
The trellises have to be well anchored as the trees get very heavy with a load of apples.
He also said the Champlain Valley climate is far different from that in the rest of the state, and statewide experiments don't always work for this area, so growers have to be cautious. Many warmer-weather apple varieties don't size up properly here, and insect pests are different, which can be a plus as the cold can kill off some of the warmer-weather bugs.
Unlike some other states that growers have to compete with, New York is especially strict and deliberate on pesticide testing, Forrence said, and approval of new products can take a long time. However, today's milder "soft pesticides" that have been approved and are in use here are much healthier and easier on the environment.
One of the problems associated with the staple McIntosh apple that is also being addressed is their tendency to drop off the trees prematurely.
"It's not uncommon to see a third of your crop come down overnight," Forrence said.
Years ago, environmentalists became critical of a product called Alar that was being used to keep the apples firm and hanging on the trees, and it was pulled off the market.
"It worked extremely well with Macs," Forrence said.
Now, recent experiments may lead to a replacement that has a different chemistry altogether. While it may be more expensive than Alar and have a different window of use, it could spread out the harvest for easier picking and increase quality.
Robinson said that with McIntosh apples, 20 to 50 percent can drop before harvest.
"That requires a very large labor force to pick the apples before they fall," he said. "Our improved drop-control treatments will mean more apples will be harvested and sold with fewer pickers required."
NEW VARIETIES
On another front, the introduction of Honeycrisp here demonstrated that a new apple variety can really take off in the North Country, and annual thinning and return-bloom experiments are under way to improve this biennial but premium-quality fruit. The Honeycrisp, sweet compared to the Mac, bears heavily one year followed by a year of lighter production.
"The Honeycrisp is an extremely high-quality apple and one of the best tasting apples around," Robinson said. "But it is proving to be difficult to manage for annual production. Improved thinning strategies are essential to result in annual bloom and the long-term successful production of this variety."
The success of the Honeycrisp has spurred the search for other popular new varieties that grow in this climate. Donald "Tre" Green of Chazy Orchard recently provided land at his 1,300-acre orchard for a Viability Institute-funded field project that directly engages growers with evaluating new varieties of apples bred at Cornell's experiment station. Over the past century, Cornell has developed 62 new varieties.
A third-generation grower, Green has grown 12 trial varieties with the potential to be New York's next "big apple."
"Accelerated on-farm development of new apple varieties is needed to meet constantly changing consumer demand," said project leader and Cornell apple breeder Dr. Susan Brown. It used to be there were four or five varieties of apples to choose from in the store, but today there are 20, and the next hot specialty grabs the shelf space.
To capture this market, major changes are taking place in the apple-breeding industry.
"There are new varieties on the horizon," Forrence said. "There's a whole new era here we're about to enter."
This is because all the universities are cutting their programs and struggling for funding. So, instead of releasing the varieties to be sold by anyone and to the public, patents are being obtained and new varieties are being sold exclusively to a group of growers. In Washington state, for example, huge co-ops buy the right to the varieties and are able to grow and sell them exclusively.
This income stream of royalties for the universities allows them to maintain their breeding programs.
SweeTango is an example of a new Honeycrisp offshoot that growers must get an exclusive license for.
"Everything is going to be a managed variety," Forrence said. "There are very few general releases anymore. It's a completely different concept."
With kids used to sweet cereal, soda and the like, sweet apple varieties like Honeycrisp seem to be taking over the market. But Forrence is glad the Mac isn't being neglected entirely, and it's still his favorite apple.
"I like the thin skin and that delicate texture," he said. "Macs got us where we are, but there is definitely a change here in the taste buds of the American people."
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