Ontario's 2024 apple crop is slightly smaller than its 2023 crop. "It's not a lot smaller and compared to the five-year crop average, it's up a little bit," says Chris Hedges of the Ontario Apple Growers.
This crop follows a bit of a challenging growing year for apples in the province. "In the early spring, we were right on the edge of some more serious frost issues–another degree or two could have been fairly traumatic to the industry," he says. However, once that was behind the industry, different regions in Ontario saw different weather conditions. "Some had very wet periods in the summer with more disease issues for growers for example," says Hedges.
In terms of varieties, Gala apples are down a bit like they were last year and Ambrosia apple volume is up over last year. "The bulk of that is reflective of the amount of plantings that have happened in the last few years. I think there are orchards that have come into production this year that make up for some of what is down due to poor spring weather," says Hedges.
Positive start on demand
Demand for Ontario apples has been good and both demand and pricing seem to be comparable to this time last year. "At this time last year, the market was still pretty strong and it hadn't been severely impacted by the sizable Washington crop of 2023. The good thing is that we look to be starting where we started last year and not where we left off."
Looking ahead, demand should remain steady thanks to good fruit quality. "People aren't going to have any reason to not buy Ontario apples. I don't see any indications that demand would not continue to be strong," Hedges says, adding that pricing is similar to last year as well and it started stronger than where it ended.
For more information:
Kelly Ciceran
Ontario Apple Growers
Tel: +1 (905) 688-0990
[email protected]
www.onapples.com