Many claim this year is yielding an excellent apple crop.
This apple growing season was kinder to Tucker County’s apple crop. To walk down a trail, a neighborhood in town, or anywhere really this time of year, you’re sure to find an apple tree flush with hearty fruit.
Despite the low number of commercial apple orchards in West Virginia, the state is hospitable to the tree. The history of apples in the state is long and storied.
Two famous apple varieties originated in West Virginia. In 1912, Anderson Mullins discovered Golden Delicious apples in Clay County. He purchased the tree from Stark Brothers’ Nursery. The Golden Delicious is thought to be an offspring of West Virginia’s other famous apple variety, Grimes Golden.
This variety was discovered on the farm of Thomas Grimes in Fowlersville in 1805. Supposedly, Johnny Appleseed planed the first Golden Grimes seed on his legendary float from Ohio River to Wellsburg. “The best frying apple ever” was grown on private and commercial orchards until the Golden Delicious displaced it.
The Golden Delicious is the state apple and the second most popular apple in the country. This all-purpose apple keeps for long periods, is fresh to eat, and is excellent when cooked.
The Northern Panhandle and the Ohio Valley saw the first growth of a commercial fruit industry in West Virginia. Production in the Northern Panhandle prospered until the Civil War.
After the war, production in the Eastern Panhandle grew to an output 4.5 million bushels in 1889. Now, few commercial apple orchards exist outside of the Eastern Panhandle where the soil and climate are ideal.
Karen and Paul Teets own and operate Teets Orchard and Nursery in Eglon. Teets Orchard and Nursery grows apples, makes cider, and sells apple trees. “In the distant past every farm had its own orchard,” Karen Teets said. “I have read that when this country was being settled it was a requirement that every settler have an orchard.”
“However, the early apples were used mainly to make hard cider. It would keep all winter. Housewives also made their own apple cider vinegar, which has many uses,” she said. Most apples are now grown for eating fresh, applesauce, and baking.
A West Virginia orchard may include some of these varieties: Yellow Transparent, June Sweet, July Sweet, Fall Rambo, Fallawater, Sweet Russet, Sour Russet, Wolf River, York Imperial, Rome Beauty and Sheepnose. “Yellow Transparent is still the favorite of many older folks for applesauce. Fallawaters will keep up to a year under the right conditions,” Karen said.
Some growers are meeting the increasing interest in old varieties, also known as “heritage apples.” Wolf River, Black Limbertwig, Walker’s Pippin, Virginia Beauty, and Baldwin are all considered heritage apples.
New apple varieties are born through breeding and are propagated by grafting. The majority of apple trees start from a grafted tree not from a seed. An apple seed may germinate and grow into a tree, but the likelihood of success and the quality of the fruit are less certain than from a grafted tree.
A yearly apple harvest can vary significantly. Harvest depends on several factors. “Mother Nature throws a lot of stuff at us,” Karen said. Apple trees are naturally biennial, meaning a bad year will often follow a good year. So before the seasonal contingencies are even factored, the genetics of a tree dictate the productivity of any given year.
Then comes the tree bloom that may dictate the number of apples you may be able to pick. “Sometimes the trees don’t bloom much. Even if they do bloom you need plenty of pollination between trees and with help from bees,” Karen said.
“Then you hope really hard that there is not a frost or even a freeze after the bloom,” she continued. In 2017, a freeze in early May heavily affected many of the apple trees throughout the county.
If it’s not cold temperatures, heavy rains can afflict damage. “This year we had torrential rains which knocked the petals off the blooms,” Karen said. “We feel that our crop was adversely affected by that.”
So with all things considered, Mother Nature was a bit gentler this season, and thus we all benefit.
