North Fork Farmers See ‘Record’ Apple Harvest This Fall

Favorable weather. Heavy pollination of bees. Minimal damage by pests. Everything has lined up this year for some North Fork fruit farms to see one of their strongest apple harvests in recent memory.

“It’s probably the best I’ve seen in my life,” said Erick Lewin, owner of Lewin Farms in Calverton. “The trees are loaded and they’re all really perfect looking apples, nice size and everything.”

The Harbes family farm in Mattituck has had a “record harvest,” said Ed Harbes Jr., and Wickham’s Fruit Farm has “never had a more complete harvest” in terms of yield per acre, said Thomas Wickham.

Farmers attribute the abundance of apples to ‘unusually wonderful weather’ during most of the flowering period this spring – there was no late frost, Mr Lewin said – and to a summer with some weather. equally favorable. In addition, thanks to the busy bees, the pollination period was a success, the farmers said.

Not to mention, at least at Wickham’s Fruit Farm, that new varieties of apples have entered production this year.

“These new varieties are very productive,” Mr. Wickham said. “It contributes to the significant harvest that we are getting. “

Insect damage in Long Island orchards was also at the lowest levels seen in the past decade, said Faruque Zaman, entomologist at Cornell Cooperative Extension in Suffolk County. Insect damage doesn’t always necessarily have an impact on total apple tonnage, but it can make the fruit less attractive, making marketing more difficult for North Fork self-harvesting farms – although, Zaman noted, heavy infestations can reduce total yield and profit.

Mr. Zaman is part of an integrated pest management program through cooperative extension, working closely with farmers to monitor and recommend options for controlling insect and disease damage.

Timing is the key, he stressed; if not treated early, problems can snowball. Cornell Cooperative Extension also makes recommendations to help farmers optimize the timing of pesticide applications, which can improve crop yields.

The cooperative also offers more holistic pest control methods, such as mating disruption – a technique that releases synthetically produced pheromones, a chemical that causes reactions among members of the same species, to make it more difficult for male insects find and mate with females. insects in orchards. Mating disruption reduces crop damage and pest population over time, often to negligible levels, Zaman says.

“We are constantly working with these farmers throughout the year to manage and control pests and disease cycles,” said Debborah Aller, farm stewardship specialist and soil scientist at CCESC. “We’ve worked with these growers for a long time and it’s a combined effort of entomologists, like Faruque, and other scientists here working directly with our farmers to help reduce pests and produce a better crop for farmers. “

The cooperative extension, with the help of tools from Cornell University, is also monitoring weather conditions to predict potential infection periods, which can help minimize disease in local orchards.

Mr Wickham, who works with the cooperative extension, said it might be difficult to sell the entire crop. He said the farm mainly produces apples for retail markets and pick-your-own orchards, and will occasionally wholesale apples to other stores.

“We have to get a really good price to make ends meet,” Wickham said, noting that it is more expensive to grow apples on Long Island than in other areas. “When we have a surplus, as we will probably have this year, in the end the only thing we can do with them is make cider.”

Both Mr. Harbes and Mr. Lewin expressed the hope that their farms would sell their apples.

“We usually run out of apples, so it would be nice to have enough to get through the season,” Harbes said, adding that the farm would likely donate any additional produce.