September, 1998
September, 1998
by Matt McCallum
Executive Publisher
New York state fruit grower Chris Watt never imagined he’d lose his entire apple crop in one night.
His worst nightmare came true at midnight on Labor Day when a powerful storm ripped across the Western New York fruit belt destroying five million bushels of apples with high winds and hail.
“We were just ready to begin harvesting when it hit,” said the Albion grower, who owns Watt Farms with his wife, Karen. “We are just taking it day by day right now. I guess it put a dent in my retirement, as if I should ever retire now.”
All 185 acres of Watt’s apples are destroyed, and apples are unusable for processing because they were knocked to the ground and have extensive hail damage.
“There’s no place to send the apples,” Chris said. “The canners have refused to take them because they are so beat up. Nobody’s going to waste their time and money picking these apples. They are chewed up so bad that it’s senseless to spend any money harvesting them.”
The storm was one more challenge put in front of New York fruit growers, said New York Apple Association Communications Director Shelley Page.
“It was a storm of biblical proportions,” she said. “Growers have been dealing with frost, hail, floods in some areas, droughts in others and ice storms. On top of all of this you have a weak juice market. It’s not a happy time to be an apple grower in New York state.”
The NYAA is estimating growers lost $30 million from the storm plus uncalculated losses to packinghouses and cold storage facilities that won’t have enough fruit to keep them running at optimum levels.
The storm came off Lake Ontario and had extremely high winds of 80 to 90 miles per hour, with gusts of 120 miles per hour and some areas seeing two-inch hail.
The storm moved across the entire fruit growing region of western New York along Lake Ontario from Niagara Falls to Syracuse. It started in Niagara County and moved east through Orleans, Genesee, Monroe, Wayne and Oswego counties.
New York was projected to pick 24 million bushels. The storm knocked out at least 20% of the crop and estimates are now down to 18 or 19 million bushels, Page said.
From a variety standpoint McIntosh took the biggest hit because it was ready to be picked and could be blown off easily. But the wind also knocked many Empire, Red Delicious and Crispin to the ground.
Some apple growers are going into the orchard and trying to spot pick for the fresh market, said Deborah Breth, Cornell University area Extension educator covering from Niagara to Wayne counties.
“Some have a harvesting system that they can sort out the bad fruit and have something of value,” she said. “Others can’t and are just not even trying.”
With all of the apples on the ground, picking is hazardous, so some growers are picking up the drops first before they pick, even though they’ll have a hard time finding a market.
“Processors, for some reason, are cutting back on what they are taking and aren’t being very gracious on keeping apple producers in business here,” she said. “They are all cutting way back. I understand why they don’t need juice apples, but I thought the rest of the processing market was doing all right.”
Growers who had trees blown out are looking to the federal Tree Assistance Program which helps growers recoup the cost of replacing trees blown over by the storm. There is about $14 million available nationwide in the program which can be used by anyone from fruit growers to nursery operations. Once all of the claims are in, the government splits up the money.
As far as crop insurance goes, no grower is holding out much hope that they will collect even enough to cover basic costs.
“I did buy up to a higher policy, but even if I get back 35 to 40 cents on the dollar I’ll be lucky,” said Chris Watt. “Three weeks ago Department of Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman was in the area and said he knows the new insurance program is bad and not fair. I sure hope they fix it, but it will be too late for fruit growers in New York.”
The
Great Lakes Fruit Growers News