We’re about 3-4 weeks into apple season up here with new varieties being harvested each week. For the week of 9/20/2024, this includes ‘Gala’, ‘Honeycrisp’, ‘Early Fuji’, ‘Golden Delicious’, ‘Jonagold’, ‘Cortland’, ‘Pixie Crunch’, ‘Crimson Crisp’, ‘Senshu’, and many, many others. This can vary from orchard to orchard. As I reported last month, apple season looks to be about 10-14 days ahead of schedule. In visiting with orchards recently, many growers, even with thinning multiple times this spring, are reporting a heavy crop load for most of these varieties. One of the issues we'll be paying attention to now and next year will be on biennial fruiting as some varieties are more prone to this than others. I was at an orchard yesterday and their walk-in cooler was full of apples ready to be sold, much more than they usually see this time of year on these varieties.  Adjacent u-pick pumpkin fields will open up the week of 9/20/2024. Many orchards that have adjacent u-pick fields tend to focus on unique pumpkins with different colors and shapes. One of the challenges with this warmer than usual weather is that it is not always enticing consumers to come to the orchard since fall weather isn’t here yet. So we are hoping for cooler fall weather to return shortly.  

Drought conditions are impacting many of our vegetable growers. The summer vegetable season is wrapping up quicker than many would like as we still see summer production lasting until the end of October in most years. This is requiring many growers to supplement with irrigation, something that they are not always expecting to do. Still, many growers are planting fall crops like radishes, leafy greens, and others, hoping that warm soil and warm weather can allow for quick germination and turn around. Insect pressure is still here and needs to be managed. This is also a time of year where weed control should remain a focus to ensure that the weed seed bank is not supplemented any further.