A previous post covered the “bad” from 2020. This one is more about the “good.”

You may be surprised that there was any good to last year. But if you visited our farm, I hope you made some happy memories.

As the virus spread in the spring, we had no idea what to expect from the the 2020 marketing season. But we knew that if people were going to come out to the orchard, they would want to feel safe. So we focused on the things we could control that would keep people safe and help them have fun on the farm.

I had long thought about using an old oversized wagon frame as the base for a new “people-mover.” This was the year to do it. We removed a dying 100-year old oak tree from the market area and had it sawn into heavy lumber. A local welder provided some scrap steel. We repurposed parts of our old market roof, and soon we had a very nice *large* wagon to help move people around the fields.

A new retail point-of-sale system provided us with the flexibility to take payments in the strawberry fields, helping to eliminate any unnecessary lines in the market. And we reallocated acreage for weekday pick-your-own so that people could come pick apples during non-peak times. Our retail staff braved the hottest summer on record, without air conditioning, behind masks.

And all these efforts appeared to pay off. Our retail and pick-your-own business was very busy this year with positive feedback on our efforts.

My hope is that people will cherish some of the good from 2020. A trip to the orchard is more than just a way to put good food on the table, it is a great way to make memories with people you love. And that’s worth remembering.

It goes without saying that 2020 will long be remembered. A once-in-a-century pandemic, the economic collapse, political and social unrest… they all contributed to a pretty ugly year.

What many people won’t remember from all the chaos is more record-setting weather here in the mid-Atlantic. The strange pattern started at the beginning of the year with the sixth warmest winter on record, with record daily highs in January, abnormally cool April, with a record cold day on May 9, followed by a very dry July with a single rainfall that dropped a month’s worth of precipitation in less than an hour, the hottest summer on record, and culminated in December with a record span of days without snow. That’s a lot of extremes in one paragraph.

As you might guess, this kind of volatility is not good for farmers, especially specialty crop growers like me. Our apricots bloomed this year in early March, but lacked the heat they needed to fully develop. We lost them all by May. We lost more than half of our strawberry and cherry production in the April freeze. Our peaches made it through an April frost only to lose 2/3 of the crop to the record May freeze. Even with the record warmth over the winter, our apples bloomed late, but most of the crop was lost to the freeze in April. The apple loss was especially interesting because the low temperature observed that night was actually in a range that the academic literature suggested was survivable; however, the trees were so stressed from “waiting” for the warm weather that many otherwise viable buds were lost.

As the summer progressed we started seeing summertime losses too. Our sweet corn this year was irrigated and well-maintained. Customers may have noticed that it was perhaps the sweetest corn we’ve ever grown; but what they didn’t see was that the yield was down and some ears misshapen because of extreme heat.

We lost not one, but two plantings of kiwiberries this year. The first was lost to the May freeze (despite row coverings), and the second was apparently lost to drought over the summer. I blame myself for the second loss for not putting the same energy into irrigation under the plants, as I did for the trellis above them. Live and Learn.

All this is to say that 2020 was a very tough growing year.

You probably have heard about Cosmic Crisp.  It is a new variety of apple that will soon be popping up in just about every major grocery store.  At its launch this winter it will ship millions of bushels, and be supported by millions of dollars of advertising.  You will be told that it is an improvement on its parent: Honeycrisp.

What you won’t be told is that your local orchard can’t grow it.

Not because it won’t grow in this climate, and not because we wouldn’t like to plant it.  The reason we can’t grow it here is that we are legally prevented from planting it.  Cosmic Crisp was developed in Washington State, and the fruit growers there have maintained exclusive rights to plant and market Cosmic Crisp.  No one outside the state is allowed to grow it.

This is just the latest example of a trend that has been developing over the last decade.  You’ve probably heard of Jazz, Kiku, SweeTango, Opal, SnapDragon, or Evercrisp, There are about 30 varieties of apples now that are not freely available for growers to plant.  They are protected by “clubs”, patents, marketing arrangements, and other methods designed by lawyers to maintain close ownership of the varieties.  As a mid-Atlantic grower, I can buy my way into some of these arrangements if I like, but other clubs are completely closed to me: like Cosmic Crisp.  (There is a great article from NPR on this topic here.  The situation has only worsened since it was written.)

This close control is intended to ensure quality, limit supply, provide funds for investment in development and marketing, and to provide an aura of exclusivity.  But it carries an incredible risk for growers, because of this I am certain: there is not enough shelf space at the grocery to carry all of these varieties, and all of those varieties will be competing against each other.

The number one risk in growing apples is not weather, not disease, not insects, and not labor.  The number one long-term risk for apples is price collapse because of lack of demand for the variety.  The timeline for apple maturity is so long, the capital establishment expense so high, and the variable cost of production so great that only a high price for a high yield over a long period will justify the planting.  Yields and longevity can be managed, but wholesale prices cannot.

Ironically, the apple suffering the most from this onslaught of new varieties provides a template for how growers should be approaching the future.  Red Delicious became popular not because it was the best tasting variety, but because a critical mass of growers in the Northeast got together and decided that the hundreds (literally) of varieties that they were trying to sell could not possibly be managed in the marketplace.  Red Delicious was pretty, grew well across climates, and tasted good enough that everybody could make money on it as long as they stuck together.

It won’t take long for everyone (except Washington State) to realize this impending cliff, and the Red Delicious-inspired solution.  I suspect that sometime in the near future, the walls will come tumbling down as the marketing czars realize that they don’t have the critical mass to compete with Washington State, which produces most of the apples sold in the US.  The supply-side market will determine which new varieties will win.  And growers stuck with the wrong varieties may very well end up broke.

As for me, I will grow a few of these new varieties when I can.  They ALL taste great, and will be a welcome addition in our farm market to compliment some of the old varieties that continue to stand up well: like Cameo, Stayman, Jonagold, and Macoun.

Just don’t expect to see any Cosmic Crisp.