By Mai Hoang
Yakima Herald-Republic
The 2020 Washington fresh apple crop will be similar in size to last year, the Washington State Tree Fruit Association said in a news release.
The Yakima-based organization anticipates a fresh apple crop of 134 million 40-pound boxes for 2020. That nearly matches the 133.9 million boxes harvested a year earlier.
Tim Kovis, communications manager for the Washington State Tree Fruit Association, said he does not expect COVID-19 to have much of an impact on the movement of the 2020 crop, noting that the percentage of the 2019 crop in storage is similar to past years.
“We are hearing and seeing continued strong domestic movement,” he said.
Apple growers have been able to apply for federal coronavirus relief. That happened in July after apple industry officials showed the U.S. Department of Agriculture that growers had experienced considerable price loss as a result of the pandemic.
Growers have already started harvesting early varieties; harvest will continue into November.
Gala is expected to make up the highest percentage of the crop at 23%, or about 30.8 million boxes. Red Delicious, once the state’s dominant apple variety, is second with 18%. Rounding out the top five varieties are Fuji at 14% and Granny Smith and Honeycrisp at 13% each.
Red Delicious barely edged out Gala apples in 2018 with 24.8% to 23.4%. Gala is in line to take the No. 1 spot for the 2019-20 crop with 24% of the crop to Red Delicious’ 19.6%.
Cosmic Crisp, the variety developed at Washington State University that made a splashy commercial debut last year, is expected to make up 1.2% of the 2020 crop, or just over 1.6 million boxes. That is a sizable increase from the 323,000 boxes harvested and shipped last year.
“Our growers are growing more varieties with excellent quality to respond to new and different consumer preferences in the marketplace,” Kovis said.
Organic apples are expected to make up 16% of the crop, or 21 million boxes. That’s an increase from 15 million boxes in the 2019 apple crop.
