By KEVIN WALKER
Michigan Correspondent

LANSING, Mich. — Michigan’s apple and grape production are down significantly this year, according to the latest fruit report published by the Michigan Office of the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS).

The October Fruit Report, published earlier this month, is forecasting an apple harvest of 530 million pounds, down 31 percent from last year and 40 percent from 2006.

Michigan’s grape production is forecast at 71,000 tons, which is 29 percent fewer than last year.

David Kleweno, director of the Michigan NASS office, said he tries to survey growers who raise a third of the acreage for a particular crop and tries to reach an appropriate cross-section of growers.

There was a weekend during the apple blossom, in the April-May time frame, when the snow stayed on the ground the entire weekend, according to Denise Donahue, executive director of the Michigan Apple Committee.

“Tuesday before Memorial Day, temperatures went to a low of 20 degrees in some places,” she said.

“There was also a lot of rain over the summer and some of it had hail. Good news is we had rain, bad news is there was hail in some of it.”

Donahue said fruit growers are usually diversified to protect themselves against a bad crop in any particular year, and tend to have orchards in different places so that a bad rain, frost or other weather incident will not take out their entire source of income for that year.

There are about 950 apple growers in the state, with 65 percent of apple production in an area known as the Fruit Ridge, northwest of Grand Rapids.

John Jasper, regional manager for the National Grape Cooperative, which owns Welch’s Foods, described the season for the juice grape industry in Michigan as a combination of good and bad elements.
“This year, although there was frost damage, all the rain we got in September really sized up the crop,” he said. “We’re struggling with some of our crops because of all the late rain, which diluted some of our sugar solids. We’re late on our season.”

Jasper said grape growers are usually done with their harvest by now. The juice grape industry is struggling because of bad weather conditions over the past few years, according to Kleweno. He described 2006 for juice grapes as a “huge, devastating year,” but said this year’s 71,000 tons is “not a huge crop.” Frost was the culprit in 2006.

Kleweno said the wine grape industry, which is a smaller part of the grape industry in Michigan, has been able to cope with bad weather better because it’s been able to keep prices up on its product. The implication for multiple bad years for the juice grape industry is that growers might become discouraged about that particular commodity, he said.

He also said fewer apples this year might mean there will be less variety available to the consumer, more imported apples and fewer exports of Michigan apples into other states.