Photo by James FeltonFREELAND, MI (WNEM) -
Jaye Reisinger is co-owner of Leaman's Green Apple Barn in Freeland. And she said this is the least amount of apples her orchard has ever seen.
"I don't think there's a grower alive that's ever seen a season like this. It feels really strange when the school children come through that we're not able to show them how to pick an apple and have them take an apple home," Reisinger said.
In March apple buds blossomed early because of the unusually warm weather the area had. Then in April a frost hit the orchard killing many of the young apples. But Reisinger said it could've been worse.
"We didn't lose as many apples as a lot of the other orchards did. We built fires throughout the spring and we would try to heat our orchard to keep the blossoms warm during the frost in April. So we did save quite a few," Reisinger said.
Reisinger told WNEM that in a normal growing season one of the dwarf apple trees in her orchard produces about 15-20 bushels of apples per year. This year those same trees didn't have enough apples on them to fill one bushel. Reisinger said the cost of apples per bushel has doubled since last year. And customers at Leaman's will pay almost $3 more for that gallon of cider. The orchard is buying apples from other parts of Michigan to keep enough of the red fruit around for consumers. And that's proved costly for business.
"Last year when we would buy a bin of apples for about $50 a bin. This year we're being charged $350 a bin. It is our goal to keep looking for apples so we have them here for our customers until Halloween," Reisinger said.
Reisinger is confident her business will break even for this year and she's optimistic that next year will be more profitable.
"This is the time of the year that the buds are forming on the tree for next year's apples and we are expecting a huge crop. If the weather and the temperature will cooperate next spring we should have a wonderful crop of apples."
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