The apple is by far the most harvested tree fruit in Germany. As reported by the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) on the basis of final harvest results, around 1.1 million tons of apples were harvested in 2022. This year's apple harvest was thus about 66,000 tons or 6.6 percent above the level of the previous year. The area under apples decreased by about 520 hectares, or 1.5 percent, during the same period. Compared to the long-term average for 2012 to 2021, the 2022 apple crop was about 100,000 tons, or 10.3 percent, higher. After the particularly good crop years of 2014 and 2018, each with more than 1.1 million tons, the 2022 apple harvest ranks third among the highest-yielding apple harvests of the past ten years. The decisive factors were, on the one hand, the good fruit set in the spring and, on the other hand, the low level of disease and pest infestation due to the weather conditions.
The two largest German apple-growing regions, Altes Land (Lower Saxony and Hamburg) and Lake Constance (Baden-Württemberg), are of particular importance for the domestic apple harvest. Baden-Württemberg harvested the most apples in 2022 with 374,400 tons, followed by Lower Saxony with 313,700 tons. This means that the harvest volume in Baden-Württemberg was 16.7 percent and in Lower Saxony 15.2 percent above the long-term average for the years 2012 to 2021. These two states alone produced around two-thirds (64.2 percent) of the apples harvested in Germany in the 2022 harvest year.
Most apples sold as dessert fruit
Of the total apple harvest, 765,800 tons (71.5 percent) were offered for sale as dessert fruit. As processing or industrial fruit, such as for the production of fruit juice, preserves or cider, 283,800 tons, or a good quarter of the crop (26.5 percent), were used. The remaining 21,400 tons were not marketed due to internal consumption, storage or processing losses.
Plum harvest some 17 percent above previous year's levels
The volume of plums and damsons harvested in 2022 came in at 46,800 tons, well above the previous year's number of 39,900 tons. This represents an increase of 17.4 percent. The area under plum cultivation decreased by around 76 hectares, or 1.8 percent, in the same period. The average harvest volume of the past ten years (44,400 tons) was exceeded by 5.6 percent. The reason for the good plum and damson harvest in 2022 lay in the favorable weather conditions, which led to good fruit set and high-yielding trees in many places. In addition, plums and damsons belong to the alternating tree fruit species which, after a low-yield harvest year (such as 2021), usually produce a good crop in the following year.
As in previous years, the most important German states for the plum harvest were Baden-Württemberg with 18,200 tons and Rhineland-Palatinate with 11,000 tons. The harvest volume of these two states, amounting to 29,200 tons, comprised 62.3 percent of this year's German plum crop.
Apples accounted for about 88.7 percent of the total recorded crop of 1.2 million tons of tree fruit in 2022. Plums and damsons accounted for 3.9 percent. In addition, 38,500 tons of sweet cherries (3.2 percent), 36,300 tons of pears (3.0 percent), 10,200 tons of sour cherries (0.8 percent), and 4,500 tons of mirabelles and reenklodes (0.4 percent) were harvested in Germany.
Source: destatis