An Apple Grower’s Hardest Decision

The hardest routine decision an apple farmer faces today is what to plant after cutting down a thousand, or ten thousand, older trees. It’s a decision growers return to throughout the life of an orchard, but there’s nothing small about the stakes.

Why cut down healthy trees that are still producing fruit? Because the apples have become hard to sell at a price that makes growing them worthwhile. In the Northeast, that’s the reality for varieties like McIntosh, Cortland, Macoun, and Empire. Old favorites; apples that people grew up picking, baking with, and looking forward to each fall.

But it’s not about a decline in flavor or color. What’s changed is the marketplace.

Over the past 20 years, new varieties have arrived with substantial money and promotion behind them. With so many entering supermarkets, consumers are somewhere between confused and overwhelmed. The cultural connection between families, individuals and old favorite varieties such as McIntosh and Cortland is slowly dwindling. 

Why does this matter? Is this more than pure sentiment in the face of constant change?

Well, it matters to apple growers, for sure, and it matters to rural and suburban communities with apple orchards, because the replacement cost of one acre of apples (what it costs to replant it to another variety) is tens of thousands of dollars. Per acre.

Extreme weather can undo a season’s work.

Growers don’t know where the fickle marketplace will be in five years, which is how long it takes for an apple tree to reach full production. It’s one big gamble!

On the one hand, this has always been a tricky decision facing orchards. On the other hand, growers are facing an exceptionally difficult time, with several pressures bearing down on orchards at once.

Extreme weather can undo a season’s work. The costs of labor, supplies, and equipment keep rising. There are more apples being produced nationally than the market can comfortably absorb (mostly in WA state), while growers face depressed wholesale prices.

At the same time, competition among large supermarket chains and institutional buyers puts more pressure on prices. Tariffs and changing trade policies add uncertainty beyond anything a farmer can control from the orchard.

All of this comes into play when a grower looks at a block of older trees and asks, “What next?”

An orchard takes years to grow. A market can change much faster. Somewhere between those two realities, a farmer has to decide what to plant.