FLAG POND, Tenn. — David Moore is storing his ladders and stacking his bushel baskets for the fall. Summer-like temperatures in the spring roasted his apple blossoms and what was left was taken by the April freeze.
“This is usually my busiest time of the year, yet here I sit. The apples I was able to salvage are all gone, so I’m done three weeks early,” said the owner of Heavenly Holler Farm. His 2½ acres are now a victim to unforgiving weather patterns that wiped out nearly all of Unicoi County’s apple crop.
The Tennessee Department of Agriculture announced last week only 7.5 million pounds of cooking or “eating” apples will be available this fall — down almost 2 million from previous harvests.
University of Tennessee extension agent Ty Petty told the Times-News that the locality’s apple supply is now just a third of what it usually reaps for the region and brings thousands to Unicoi for the annual Apple Festival in October.
“We had unusually warm weather in the late winter, early spring. Then, the freeze in April just destroyed apple blooms that had sprouted out early. It was really bad timing,” said Petty, who estimates the loss to county producers at over $100,000.
Moore, who says 50 percent of his apples are gone, is fortunate to have other fruits on his acreage, including blueberries and Asian pears, which he says weathered the tough spring and produced the best crop this growing season.
“I would be looking at three varieties (of apples) ready to be picked off the limb,” he said.
“I usually have enough of the other varieties that are ready during the spring months that can carry me over until the fall blooms come in. We would have people to continue picking until they came in.
“The varieties I have now are just too small and they grow toward the inside of the tree. They are not our best sellers, so we’re not even going to bother picking them. The outside apples are the ones that got the sun and usually grow the most.”
In 2007, Moore’s and other Unicoi County apple orchards experienced complete losses, and Petty says only larger apple operations are the ones that are better insured against disasters like this.
“Some (insurance) companies require a damage policy for each variety of apple you grow, making (it) prohibitive for our growers. Most are just family operations,” said Petty.
Moore’s blueberries were not immune from the elements or from the beasts, as well. A 75 percent dip in blueberry poundage was due to weather and to bears.
“There was not enough (food) for them in the woods, so they came down and stripped my blueberry bushes,” he said.
“When you have a freeze like we did, it affects everything. The nut crop in the forest was affected, leaving the bears with little or nothing, so they came out looking for food and found my blueberries.”
Unicoi County typically has 20 varieties of apples, including Moore’s operation where people could come and pick their own.
Petty says the wipeout of the apple crop has come in three-year cycles and he attributes that to the changing weather patterns.
“If we can get two to three full (harvests) when you compare things in the past, we are doing well with that. In 2007, it was in the low 20s in late May, which never happened. We just cannot get a consistent weather pattern to help apples along,” he said.