Despite a bitter winter and a late spring, Minnesota’s fall apple crop looks big and juicy.
“The (apple) quality this year is looking just super,” said Jim Luby, a fruit breeder at the University of Minnesota. “With this nice mild weather, the quality of what we’ve been eating is so good.”
After the chilly spring, many apple varieties are maturing a bit late this year. The Honeycrisp — Minnesota’s official state fruit — isn’t ready yet at most orchards. But many other varieties are ripe and ready to pick.
“Probably for many of us, the Honeycrisp is going to be at least another week,” Charlie Johnson, president of the Minnesota Apple Growers Association, said Thursday.
But overall, Johnson said, “What I’m hearing from the growers is, they have an excellent crop of apples this year.”
This weekend marks the unofficial start of the busy autumn season for many orchards. It’s when families trek to the countryside to pick apples, choose pumpkins and get a taste of farm life.
The popularity of autumn day trips continues to boom, and orchard owners keep adding attractions to make the trips more fun — and profitable. Corn mazes, hay rides and wine tastings seem to be sprouting as quickly as apple trees.
“Sometimes it’s petting zoos, sometimes it’s scarecrow building, sometimes it’s an apple doughnut stand, but it’s very much adding activities and family fun,” said Paul Hugunin, coordinator of the Minnesota Grown program at the Minnesota Department of Agriculture, of attractions the growers have added.
Ag officials welcome the trend for several reasons. One is the economic benefit it provides farmers. But they see benefits beyond that.
“It’s a subtle way for people to understand about agriculture and food and to introduce kids to food that’s good for them — fresh, healthy, off-the-farm food,” Hugunin said. “It’s a way for kids who didn’t grow up on farms to see that it’s not the grocery store that does these things.”
The Minnesota Grown directory contains a full list of orchards in the state, including 18 within 25 miles of St. Paul. It’s online at MinnesotaGrown.com.
At Johnson’s orchard, Whistling Well Farm in Afton, visitors have options beyond apples.
“We have mums, pumpkins, jams, jellies, and we have a big flock of chickens the kids can feed.
We have some turkeys and a donkey, too.”
One orchard in the region, Untiedt’s Vegetable Farm in Waverly, lost its entire apple crop last week in a severe hailstorm.
Johnson said Untiedt’s calamity “was an isolated incident. For the most part this summer, there’s been very little hail damage at the other orchards, from what I’ve heard.”
But there have been other obstacles. Last winter’s severe cold was tough on a few apple varieties, particularly Fireside trees.
Luby, the U fruit breeder, said weather stresses are a hard fact of life for growers.
“Some folks got hit hard by one thing or another, but the apples that are out there are really nice this year,” Luby said.
Minnesota doesn’t rank as a major apple-producing state. That title goes to Washington, followed by New York and Michigan.
Yet Minnesota’s apple orchards are expanding. And U fruit breeders are famed for successfully introducing a series of popular apple varieties, including Haralson, Zestar, SweeTango and Honeycrisp.
Said Hugunin, the state ag official: “It’s a testament to the U varieties that the vast majority came through the winter OK. Last year was a very, very cold winter, and it stayed cold a long time. Yet we have fresh apples in the state of Minnesota this fall.”
Tom Webb can be reached at 651-228-5428. Follow him at twitter.com/TomWebbMN.
