What could have been - NY apples

Andy Nelson of The Packer provides coverage of damage to the New York apple crop from last week's hail storm.

Talking with Jim Allen of the New York Apple Association this morning, he said the state took a significant hit from the June 17 hail storm, particularly in Wayne County - the largest apple producing county in the state.

Apple growers in that area lost the opportunity to turn the crop there into valuable fresh market inventory. The full extent of the damage is still being measured.

Allen noted the 2007 overall crop came in at close to 30 million bushels, and the industry was expecting something similar for 2008 before the hail storm. In general, about 57% of the apple crop in NY goes fresh and 43% goes to processing channels.

Given the state's overall expected crop, Wayne County was expected to produce about 13 million this year, before the hail storm. Typically, processing apples account for about 70% of the Wayne County crop while fresh market apples have a 30% share.

This year, 60% plus of what would have gone for fresh out of Wayne County will go to processed channels instead. More than 3 million bushels that would have gone fresh from Wayne County won't after the hail storm, Allen said. Allen said Wayne County will still produce about 3 million bushels of fresh market apples.

"We will be down, but we certainly won't be out," Allen said.

The processing market, which has been strong, figures to absorb a good amount of the fruit that had been slated for the fresh market, he said.

Look for more coverage in next week's Packer about the New York apple crop from Andy.

From the USDA's June 20 cold storage report, an update on apples in cold storage Note that some of these apples are controlled by processors: The USDA reported total apples in cold storages were 994 million pounds on May 31, off from 1.065 billion pounds the same time a year ago, or down about 7%. Michigan holdings of 21 million pounds were off by 53%, while New York apples in cold storage totaled 148 million pounds, up 150%. Pennsylvania cold storage holdings of 35 million were off slightly from year ago levels and Washington apples in cold storage on May 31 tallied 739 million, 14% lower than a year ago.