Ontario is moving towards becoming a year-round crop-to-crop apple supplier. So says Brian Rideout, the new chair of the Ontario Apple Growers. (Rideout was elected the new chair of the association in December and is a grower with Manitree Fruit Farms.) "Our ability to grow the apple has gotten there. Enough of us have planted new technologies, new varieties on this fruiting wall system and that has increased our production and our ability to produce a high-quality apple," he says.
Add to that the technology to hold apples in long-term storage which has also seen similar improvements and investments. "So we're now able to harvest an apple in September and maintain it for quite a while. If you're harvesting the right quality apple, that apple will taste–especially certain varieties–better now at the end of storage than when you harvested them," he says.
Rideout says the apple bloom has finished in Ontario and some varieties may be down–though that may depend from grower to grower.
Varietal updates
Rideout says at his farm, it still is shipping Red Delicious apples–a variety that is seeing some slower movement this season–in addition to consumer favorite, Honeycrisp apples, which is also seeing slightly softer demand. "It could be just the high supply year because everybody had a fantastic 2023 crop," he says, noting it finished up with varieties such as Gala and Ambrosia storage crop is also lower.
Looking ahead to the 2024 apple crop which will be harvested later this year, the bloom has finished and some varieties may be down–though that may depend from grower to grower. It's likely due to the last two seasons of apples in Ontario being good crops. "Then on other varieties, there's so much fruit and that's the way it was last year too," says Rideout. "We may be a little bit down overall but I think the other varieties will pick up the pace on that. Every variety every year does its own little thing."
For more information:
Kelly Ciceran
Ontario Apple Growers
Tel: +1 (905) 688-0990
[email protected]
www.onapples.com