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The one drink that I look forward to all year — and probably one of the reasons I love fall so much — is apple cider.
In the United States, cider is made from fresh apples that have been pressed but not filtered or clarified. It is golden and sweet. In other countries, apple cider only refers to alcoholic cider or what we call hard cider, but that is a story not related to this column!
THOUSANDS OF JOBS
Because I love fresh cider so much, I feel lucky to be in an apple growing region. But there are many additional reasons to enjoy living here. New York state is the second-largest apple-producing state, with an average production of 29.5 million bushels annually.
The majority of those apples come from the Champlain Valley, eastern and western Hudson Valley, Central New York, the Great Lakes region and Niagara. All in all, apple orchards take up 51,097 acres of land in New York and are owned by 694 commercial apple growers.
So, what happens to all these apples? A little less than half are processed into juice and cider, sauces, slices, pie filling, vinegar, jelly, apple butter and much more. A bit more than half are used fresh and are sold at roadside markets, supermarkets, used in food services and exported to other countries.
Needless to say, the apple industry employees thousands of New York residents through direct agricultural jobs, indirect jobs such as handling, distribution, marketing, processing and others such as equipment sales and services.
A DIFFICULT TASK
Growing apples is no easy job, either. The trees must be trained through meticulous pruning to allow proper sunlight to reach the fruit, to prevent overloading and breakage of the limbs, and to allow for easy harvesting.
In addition, there is a plethora of insects and fungus that can attack the fruit. Commercial growers use specialized equipment and precise timing when deciding to apply chemical protectants and treatments to produce a high-quality, healthy product with as little use of chemicals as possible. Anyone who has grown apples at home knows how difficult this task is to achieve. But orchards can do so because of new technology and information available to commercial growers.
Then, to top it all off, there is the added stress of unpredictable weather such as late spring frosts or hail that can reduce yields or damage the crops. With all the variables that go into producing a nice-looking apple, it is amazing that our growers can do what they do and do it so well.
So the next time you bite into an apple or take a sip of some refreshing, seasonal cider, I hope that you will have a better appreciation of all of the hard work that went into it and the economic benefits apple orchards provide to our region and our state.
Anne Lenox Barlow is the horticulture educator with Cornell Cooperative Extension in Clinton County. Office phone numbers: Clinton County 561-7450, Essex County 962-4810, Franklin County 483-7403. E-mail questions to: askMG@cornell.edu.
