Drought Has Hurt RI's Apple Crop, Along with Unfavorable Spring

JOHNSTON, RI—Rhode Island apple growers say customers can find beautiful apples at farm stands and in some orchards this fall, but extreme dryness all year and an unfavorable spring has been devastating.

According to Darlene Dame at Johnston's Dame Farm, she lost 60 percent of her apples—and all the peaches — before the drought even reached severe status.

"The apples we have are nice," she said, "I hope folks still come out and pick them." But this crop costs farmers a lot of money, she said, and blamed a combination of things.

First, the warm spring weather came in too fast, she said. The buds came out a couple of weeks ahead of time, and then a cold snap killed them. That killed 100 percent of her peaches and about 60 percent of her apples.

Dame Farm's orchards do sit at a lower elevation, she said. "It sits in a hollow protected by a ring of trees," she said, but unfortunately, that location stays colder than a higher elevation.

Then, it was damp and rainy during the pollination season.

"We need a few days of warm, sunny weather," she said, but instead, it was dank. The pollen stuck together, and "the bees couldn't work the pollen," she said.

The drought was about the last straw, she said.

Most growers expect to use some irrigation, she said, but it makes the growing expensive. And this year, most of the crop was loat before the drought even hit.

At Narrow Lane in North Kingstown, the drought hit the apples hard, according to Sharon Grenier. As a result, customers won't be able to pick their own apples this year, but some crops will be for sale at Farmers Markets. The Narrow Lane Orchard's Facebook page explains the February frost wiped out the peaches and hit the apples hard. Combined with the drought, "we have less than half of what we had last year." The owners made the decision to pick the crop themselves and sell it at markets.

"This will be the first time in thirteen years that we have owned the orchard that we have closed," she said.

Rocky Brook Orchard and Sweet Berry Farm, in Middletown, are open for picking apples.

Greg Ostheimer, of Rocky Brook Orchard, said the "drought and the heat combination really affected us. The apples are certainly much smaller."

Everybody in New England lost all their peaches, due to the frost, he said.

It was really a combination of things that hurt the apples, he said.

Most apple varieties are "alternate bearing," he said, so a big crop one year means a small crop the next year. Last year, apple growers harvested an enormous crop. By contrast this year, he estimates 40 percent of the varieties started out with no flowers at all.

"Then we had the freeze," he said, and the trees were already stressed.

But even with all those issues and the drought, the crop might have been play, if it hadn't been so hot.

With the drought and the heat, a lot of apples rotted on the trees.

But there are still some apples to pick. The orchard also has pears and quince.

Rocky Brook is open from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays.

Sweet Berry Farm is open from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. every day except Christmas.

Photo Captions: Apples on the tree waiting to be picked at Sweet Berry Farm, Middletown, RI.

Apples on the ground at Sweet Berry Farm.

Credit: Margo Sullivan