The apples are large, but heavy rain and humidity caused part of the crop to be lost.
That’s the word from Tom Schwartz of Schwartz Orchard as he was selling bags of apples and apple cider at Applefest in Salem this weekend.
“I’d say we are sitting on 3/4 of a crop. We had some heat in July so I’ve had more trouble keeping apples on tree’s this year than the last 40 years. Evidently the high humidity and heat is causing them to get off the tree. We have picked about 80% of the crop. They sized well as many of you know, we got lots of water.”
Schwartz says there is a potential of some trees dying from what amounts to drowning from too much water. Schwartz says he has to plant new
trees each year to keep up production. The orchard has about 5,000 apple trees.
