Enough sun, but not too dry. Enough rain, but not too wet. They are the recipes for a perfect apple harvest this year. The harvest this summer will be seventeen percent higher throughout the Netherlands than last year, the international association for the apple and pear industry predicts. At fruit grower Rik Jurrius from Helmond the yield goes through the roof: thirty percent more apples and pears. “I go from the worst year to the best year ever.” And we as a consumer will notice that.
With a big smile, Rik walks through his fields full of apple and pear trees on Tuesday. “There they hang, they look beautiful. Every time I walk here it is enjoyment,” he says. Rik takes a bite of a red -yellow apple to test the quality. “We are going to pick these apples on Friday, they can sunbathe for a while.”
“This is one of the best years ever.”
“There are sometimes years that I don’t like it, but now I really like it,” says Rik, inspecting the apples. “We really have a super harvest this year. Last year it was super bad, dramatic. We had rain all year round, so that entire fields full of apple trees drowned.”
But this year everything is different. “Everything goes without saying. The sun is shining and the trees have enough moisture. This is really nice weather.” Rik already knows that he has thirty percent more apples this summer than last year. “I have been a fruit grower since 1997 and I have experienced 28 harvests. Last year was my worst year and this is one of the best years ever.”
We will not feel that in the wallet, the price for the fruit will remain about the same. “If there is a lot of harvest, you have a lot of picking, cooling are full and the yields are lower. With lesser harvests you have less work and higher prices, that is sometimes better for us as fruit growers.”
Nevertheless, consumers will notice something of the ‘super harvest’. “The taste of the apples is much better this year. The leaves are sugar factories: if they absorb a lot of light, they make more sugars. And then more sugars go to the apples. So we get juicy and sweet apples.”
“Due to climate change we have an early east.”
In the spring, Rik thought it would be a bad year. “At the bottom of the trees the flowers were frozen. I was really afraid that it would be a small harvest. But it happened more than well.”
The secret of a good harvest: lots of light and sufficient moisture. “That combination was perfect for me this year. But many farmers have a hard time because it is too dry, for example the potatoes have a hard time,” sighs Rik.
The new harvest apples this year is a week earlier than normal. “That is constantly moving forward. That is due to climate change. We used to have full bloom during Queen’s Day, nowadays that is on April 20. Ten days earlier. That is why we also have an early harvest.”
