Orchards hum with activity, when the weather is right

EPHRATA — The orchard was busy. There was a lot of work to be done, and the place was humming with activity.

Literally humming. The orchard was filled with bees.

A week of warm temperatures prompted a lot of plants to start blooming – as allergy sufferers can attest – including apple trees. The warm sunny days and light winds also are to the liking of bees, and they had things to do.

“We’ve had pretty good pollination weather,” said Karen Lewis, tree fruit specialist for WSU-Grant/Adams County Extension. For most of April it was windy, and sometimes rainy. “We had very low temperatures everywhere, and then we got very warm everywhere.”

From the road it looks like there are a lot of blossoms on at least some of those apple trees. However, “it’s hard to say” if those blossoms will add up to a big apple crop, Lewis said. All the conditions have to be just right; the weather has to be bee-friendly. “You can have this big prolific bloom and not have bee activity.”

And the weather has be right at just the right time. There’s an “effective pollination period,” Lewis said, and when it’s over, flowers can bloom and bees can bustle all they want, and it won’t add up to any apples.

Some varieties, Gala being an example, may have missed the good-weather window. But consumers have – and will have – a lot of different apples to choose from.

“This variety mix is just – unbelievable,” Lewis said. “There’s an apple out there for everybody, and there’s an apple out there for every purpose.” New varieties emerge, old varieties lose market share, and right now the consumer has a lot of options, from sweet to tangy. “The expectations of the consumer should be skyrocketing.”

The picture is a little more complicated for growers. Some of the new varieties are restricted and not available to all growers. Buying a license makes them more expensive to grow, which makes them more expensive for consumers. Lewis said there are strategies that give consumers access to all that fruit at more affordable prices.

Bagged apples have come back into the market, Lewis said. Apples that have been rejected for the U.S. market, fruit that “might not make grade for superficial blemishes,” is finding a niche overseas.

“I hope everybody wins, including the consumer,” Lewis said.

Cheryl Schweizer can be reached via email at education@columbiabasinherald.com.