Michigan Expect Record Apple Crop This Year

Last year Michigan's apple farmers faced dismal yields, the crop decimated by late frosts. But this year is shaping up to be a record harvest, with projections expecting to top 30 million bushels, a meteoric leap form last's year's crop of just 2.7 million bushels.

"This year is a limb-busting crop; some of our branches are so full with apples that they snap with a little help from the wind," said Adam Dietrich an apple grower at Leo Dietrich and Sons, based in Conklin, Mich. "A single tree from 2013 is producing more than an 8-acre block of trees did in 2012."

The apple excess is welcome, but it means a particular set of challenges, including where to store the crop so to not flood the market and spoil profits.

One way to prevent this from happening is by picking the apples before ripen and induce them to a state of "sleep" where certain atmospheric conditions prevent them from ripening. Doing so allows the fruit to be kept in storage until the market demands more.

"Controlled-atmosphere storage, a refrigerated room with reduced oxygen levels, suspends the ripening process in many varieties of apples," said Randy Beaudry, a Michigan State University horticulturist . "In a sense, we are lulling them to sleep and increasing the time that they can remain in storage."

A MSU research team is working on a solution to a vexing apple storage problem. While some apple varieties, such as McIntosh and red delicious have been deconstructed down to a science - others, such as the Honeycrips remain elusive. Growers have yet to master how to store the coveted Honeycrisp, which currently can only last about four months in storage.

But the MSU research team is getting closer to a solution. New storage tactics pioneered by the MSU team have nearly doubled the length of Honeycrisp storage time.

Honeycrisps are sensitive to refrigeration and low oxygen levels," he said. "We are working on techniques to condition them prior to storage, which lowers this sensitivity and increases storage times."

The researchers say the hope to see their method adopted by the apple industry this year or next.