HENDERSONVILLE, N.C. (AP) - As Henderson County’s apple farmers wrap up a mixed season this month, their work is far from over.
Now comes the pruning, raking, preventative spraying and repairs that lay the foundation for next year’s crop.
With the exception of Sky Top Orchard outside Flat Rock, most u-pick and pre-picked operations have closed for the season, including Grandad’s Apples and J.H. Stepp’s Hillcrest Orchard.
Meanwhile, commercial growers are picking the dregs of their late-season varieties, including a few Pink Ladies and Gold Rushes. But even when those are gone, farmers don’t have time to rest on their laurels.
“A lot of people will be raking orchards and as these apples are in cold storage, we’ll start hauling apples to shipping facilities,” said farmer Kenny Barnwell. “Then you have to repair all your boxes, and by the time you’re done pruning, it’s time to start spraying again.”
Sky Top’s apples are mostly off the trees, said owner David Butler, but the farm will remain open until Dec. 1 so visitors can take advantage of hay rides, cider, pies and plenty of pre-picked apples. Even when visitation thins out, he said there’s plenty of orchard work left to do.
“What I tell people is, imagine if you had a 100-acre yard you had to maintain, how much work you’d have,” Butler said. “And if you did go to the Bahamas for three months every winter, when you got back your crop quality would probably suffer so much, your only vacation would be in Zirconia.”
As soon as the last apples are picked, said Cooperative Extension Director Marvin Owings, the maintenance work begins.
“It’s a 12-month process,” Owings said. “So right now they’ll be putting out lime and fertilizer, putting out rat bait for voles, putting herbicide out. They like to get in and start pruning while we’ve got some decent weather. There’s always something to be done.”
One critical task facing local growers, he said, is raking out leaf litter from under apple trees, chopping it up and spraying urea fertilizer to prevent the further spread of a pesky fungus called Glomerella. The disease has worsened in the last four years, Owings said.
“It damages the fruit, but first it attacks the leaves and it will literally defoliate the tree,” he said. “And in year’s past, most of this problem has come after harvest.Some of our better fresh fruit growers have been affected, which has gotten everyone’s attention. They’ve sprayed basically on a weekly schedule and still haven’t gotten it under control.”
Despite that threat, 2014 was reasonably good as far as apple production was concerned, Owings said. But some growers faced freeze and hail damage early in the season, followed by poor prices late.
“In a nutshell, it’s been kind of a mixed bag,” Owings said. “We had frost and freeze back in the spring that affected orchards all across the county, some to more extent than others. Then we had hail that did the same thing - certain areas were affected a lot more than others.”
Farmers who got pelted by hail last May - primarily in Dana, Etowah and Clear Creek - saw some fruit down-graded from the more lucrative fresh fruit market to the less-profitable processing market, Owings said.
Fresh fruit prices were “pretty solid,” said Barnwell, but prices for processing apples were “just fair” because of inconsistencies in the going rate. He noted that in some cases, processing prices were actually less than the typical low-point for juice apples.
“As a general rule, it’s fairly consistent through all the processors,” said Barnwell. “This year, you had one guy paying half what another was. If you weren’t contracted to the guy who was paying better money, you were really selling them below the cost of production.”
Sky Top Orchard is open daily from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. through Dec. 1. For more information, call 828-692-7930 or visit www.skytoporchard.com.
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Information from: Times-News, https://www.blueridgenow.com
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