Oregon Public Broadcasting

Around the Northwest farmers are rushing to get their apples off trees before cold weather sets in. This year’s apple harvest looks better than expected, as correspondent Anna King reports.

Growers had expected to harvest a smaller apple crop because of frosts and bad weather in the spring.

That means some apples aren’t ripe yet. But Ron Appleby says his crop near the Snake River in southeast Washington looks pretty good.

Appleby, yes that’s his name, runs Broetje Orchards. That’s one of the largest fruit-growing operations in the United States.

This year’s harvest started about 10 days late because of the cool spring, but Appleby says so far so good.

Ron Appleby: "Everybody has nice fruit coming off. I think it’s going to be a high quality year. Right now everything just looks like it’s going to be a real extraordinary harvest."

Appleby says his crew can pick about 7 million pounds of fruit a day. But with cold weather already setting in, that might not be fast enough to save all the apples left on the trees.