Washington Apple Industry

[Music] this is Washington Apple country [Music] these fertile valleys and plateaus of America's Pacific Northwest grow the best apples in the world great-great grandfather came up from California and decided to plant an orchard and see vegan kind of runs in my blood I am fourth generation so my great-grandpa started farming he had a diversified farm you know as everybody did in the 40s and 50s my great-grandfather the first generation he founded it were approximately about a hundred and ten years old our first seven years were tough as nails 1949 they'd been out of a long time [Music] more than 175,000 acres of apple orchards are nestled in the eastern foothills of the Cascade Mountains of Washington at elevations from 500 to 3,000 feet above sea level our orchards are irrigated with plentiful cool Mountain water from multiple waterways throughout the state including the Columbia and Yakima rivers it's a wonderful climate I mean we're right here in the Delta of the Okanagan River and the Columbia River and there's a lot of days of sunshine we don't get a lot of big adverse weather events it's really conducive for apples and cherries you have really cold nights warm days you have a big big temperature differential the fruit can contract and expand and it makes for a very correct cell division and cell structure so the fruit is crunchy and it's just a great area to grow fruit Washington is has it has a great natural climate for for growing apples as far as the number of degree days that accumulate its perfect season for for good ripening and things the this technically is a desert so the water is is key and we have the beautiful Columbia River right there we get our water up from that so we have good clean water to use and then we can control that water as well through our irrigation system rather than just having to depend on rain we can really manipulate it and give the tree exactly what it needs our growers continually improve their growing methods to produce apples that are crisper juicier more flavorful and harder so that they keep better in storage Washington growers successfully harvest a wide variety of apples including red and golden delicious Granny Smith Honey Crisp Fuji Crips pink Gala and many others we use the latest technology in our warehouses to ensure the highest quality apples reach your shelves it's way more complicated than it looks one that's in the grocery store this is a lot of steps a lot of thoughts a lot of process to go into making it a healthy healthy item we want the consumer to have a good eating experience every time they pick up an apple so we use all this technology to make sure that they do the average size of a Washington apple orchard is about a hundred acres but some cover as many as five thousand acres and employ 300 or more farm workers year-round it takes an estimated 35,000 to 45,000 Pickers to harvest the apple crop during the peak of harvest our families work hard to provide the safest tastiest and healthiest apples to the world the reason why this Red Delicious apple is so special as you can see we have superior color this is even the stripe varietal but we have superior color we have great shape to this great type a lot of consumers they want this type of an elongated type that and the points on there other reason why this is a great Apple is addition on this is gonna be better than anything else out there Washington has the best condition the best storage and all the right elements to make sure that that consumer has the best quality all year round this is where the best hassles in the world are grown there's nothing like the taste of a fresh ripe Washington Apple and there's nothing like the smell of a fresh ripe Washington Apple [Music] the Washington Apple is as much of the state's heritage as aerospace computers and coffee maybe even more so like so many crops in Washington apples got their start on the Fort Vancouver farm in the 1820s this farm helps sustain the area traders and trappers by the late 1830s the fort was growing grains Forge crops and fruits and vegetables as more people moved to the state fruit trees provided the new settlers with more diverse food choices by the 1850s and 60s apple orchards were growing throughout western and southeastern Washington most people grew them for their own use or for local sales then in the 1880s and 90s the railroads of the area they made markets thousands of miles away on the east coast much more accessible for trade from the Pacific Northwest at the same time large-scale irrigation projects in the Yakima and Wenatchee valleys were underway this expansion led to more competition among growers high quality standards became necessary to provide the best fruit for the marketplace and growers began forming partnerships or cooperatives to market their fruit growers learned how to prune fertilize and manage pest pressures in their orchards research conducted by Washington State College helped growers understand what varieties and farming practices worked best in the region cooperatives marketed their apples under branded names that people could remember brands like Apple kids good Pickens dainty made and Chief Joseph set each co-op apart growers planted apple varieties that not only tasted better but also stored better growers store their apples in warehouses or cold storage facilities to meet consumer demand for three to six months after harvest as technology improved growers added fans and ventilation to circulate air inside the cold storages some also used ice to keep the facilities and apples cool until they could be shipped to a market these same basic ideas are used today at the same time businesses began processing the apples that were not sold in the Fresh Market in two ciders marble sauce and other products for the 1910s Wenatchee and Yakima valleys emerged as the major growing regions in the state and both the Great Northern and Northern Pacific Railroad's were extremely interested in marketing these two crops to buyers on the East Coast in the 1920s Washington surpassed New York as the leading Apple producing state in the nation refrigerated rail cars and steam ships made it possible to ship apples overseas and across the nation with less spoilage during transport after the Great Depression growers realized the importance of a consistent statewide marketing entity the Washington State Apple Commission was formed in 1937 by the state legislature to promote education advertising and market development on behalf of all growers within the state the Commission is funded in part by growers and works to market Washington apples to the public in export markets during World War two there was a shortage in rail cars which made the Apple industry turn to refrigerated trucks for transport this change stuck and by 1980 trucks moved 90% of the apple crop today Washington's pristine land and waters still produce the highest quality apples in the world growers are using new technologies to ensure the highest standards in food and worker safety in orchards throughout the state Washington apples can be found on market shelves around the world thanks to the legacy of their pioneers Washington orchards are full of all your favorite varieties you recognize the gala Crips pink Honey Crisp and of course Red Delicious but where did they all come from about 2,500 known varieties of apples are grown in the United States more than 7,500 are grown worldwide America's love of apples stretches all the way back to our nation's earliest days the first actual American cultivated apple variety was apparently grown by Reverend William Blackstone in Rhode Island in the 1630s he called it black stones yellow Sweeting as more people grew apples these trees cross pollinated each other forming new types or varieties in 1870 a farmer named Jessie Hyatt found an odd seedling growing on his farm in Iowa no matter how hard he tried to cut it down this seedling kept growing back this determined little apple eventually became the Red Delicious variety and it became the most popular variety in America [Music] meanwhile the Granny Smith apple was discovered as a seedling in Australia in the late 1860's it made its way to America and Washington farmers began growing it commercially in the 1960s in the early 1900's another seedling was found on a farm in West Virginia and it became known as the Golden Delicious in the early 1930s another Australian J H kid crossed the Golden Delicious with kids orange red and created the gala variety today galas are the most popular variety grown in Washington also in the 1930s researchers in Fujisaki Japan created the Fuji apple by crossing the Red Delicious with The Virginian rawls Janet varieties the Fuji made its way to the u.s. in the 1960s one of today's most beloved varieties Honey Crisp was developed in the 1960s it was developed at the University of Minnesota and it took 30 years for this variety to be available for commercial production in the 1990s crips pink is another variety that recently became popular among consumers it was developed in Australia in the 1970s this variety made its way to Washington orchards in the late 1990s and is also known as pink lady the newest variety to be widely planted in Washington State is the cosmic crisp this variety was developed by Washington State University and is a cross between the Honey Crisp and Enterprise it's deep red color firm crisp texture and juicy sweet tart flavor make it an exceptional eating Apple it also stores well so apple lovers should be able to enjoy it year-round cosmic crisp will be grown exclusively in Washington for the first decade of its life so trade and consumers alike can look to our beautiful state to try this new Apple that's out of this world today there are dozens of varieties grown in Washington orchards both public and proprietary apples to keep consumers happy with the new cosmic Crisp Apple plantings now and orchards throughout the state we are sure to continue to please mouth's around the world with Washington apples high quality Washington apples don't happen by chance our growers spent years developing the perfect orchard conditions to meet consumer demands for high quality fruit they can trust that balance begins with strong public and private breeding programs creating a new variety is a lengthy and meticulous process there's always new research coming out with new varieties and it takes 20 or 30 years to breed up an apple and get it established it takes that long because of propagation it takes seven or eight years before an apple seed will have flowers so it just takes time and you have to keep testing it consumers like texture in their apples and their like flavor this is one of the first plantings of cosmic crisp and this one has everything going for it in both cases once a Washington Apple grower decides what variety to plant they then choose a location that's just right for an orchard you got to find a piece of ground that's got good soils and hopefully good air drainage on a slope so it's free next they choose a growing technique for their trees there are many different growing styles in Washington some growers use traditional growing practices that average three hundred and sixty trees per acre others have transitioned into high density orchards which can support fourteen hundred and fifty trees per acre regardless of the orchard style Washington apple trees are given the best start possible with perfect soil and clean mountain water apple varieties are usually grafted onto hardy root stock that grows well in our climate this practice allows growers to balance consumer demands with their specific growing region once an apple tree is planted it will begin setting fruit in its third year the fruit stage begins with the blossom which happens in early spring so this variety is gala we're probably at about a 30% bloom right now the bees will come in and take pollen off the flower and then that bee will take that pollen and will fly onto a flower and deposit the pollen right on top of what we call the stigma and then that pollen will germinate that's when the fertilization occurred once the trees are pollinated the fruit begins to grow through the summer months [Music] apples naturally produce a wax coating on their skin this coating helps protect the Apple from sunburn and other growing challenges so if I rub this fruit see it starts to shine up that's the natural wax of this fruit that wax has a lot of good purpose for the fruit helps the fruit store longer and just a general overall appearance of the fruit which is nice there's nothing like a fresh Washington Apple harvest time varies with each apple variety most Washington apple growers begin harvest in August and finish in early November after November the apple trees begin to go dormant for the winter during the winter months growers will prune their trees to make room for new growth in the spring once spring arrives the cycle begins again with blossoms forming on the trees an apple tree can live to be more than 100 years old because orchards are expensive to plant and maintain growers carefully research what varieties are right for their location we have a long term strategy which is you know more high-density desert quality fruit you know getting it done right about forty thousand dollars an acre to plant like that a lot of money okay the mid term would be grafting using some of the old existing roots like we have here thing and grafting is really simple it's removing the top of the tree and placing in sign wood of whatever variety you want to go with you can see where these trees were cut off down low and now you have a 101 11 root stock with about that much Red Delicious and then you've got Honey Crisp grafted off of that we will not raise an apple that doesn't taste good Washington growers have learned how to grow the world's best apples while being good stewards of their land water and resources every Washington Apple you eat has been carefully grown to be crisp juicy and flavorful no matter the time of year while growing harvesting processing and distributing to markets quality is checked every step of the way to make sure each Washington Apple is consistently the world's best with an abundance of clean mountain water unique micro climates widespread valleys and long growing seasons Washington Apple growing regions are second to none around the world we know that nothing works in our soils are with our trees without having good water the amount of water and the quality of our water is so good here in Washington state that we believe that that's one of the reasons that our for it tastes so good we've got everything you need plenty of sunlight and access to water good open ground there are thirteen hundred and sixty apple growers in Washington who work year-round to make our apples great they prune trees in the winter carefully tend to blossoms in the spring thin out small fruit in the summer hand pick apples during harvest and then start all over again one thing that stands apart with being an orchard ists is that it's not an annual crop you are always thinking about next year and the year after that in late summer and fall apples are thoroughly checked against hi Washington state standards to determine if they're ready for harvest apples are tested for their color sugars starch pressure and storage capabilities so we'll do usually ten to twenty apples in a block to determine maturity and after years of data collection and research we know how firm an apple we want to put into a long-term CA storage we are looking for fruit maturity and that is looking at where the sugars are where the color is how firm we implement rigorous food safety standards that ensure that we're doing the best to begin this piece of fruit on its journey to the consumer in the safest fashion we can and then we can put it in a box and put in a truck and send it to our customers with a complete faith that we've sent them a high-quality world-class piece of fruit that is food safe every year around 10 to 12 billion apples are hand-picked during harvest the apples are collected into large bins which are quickly brought to a nearby packing house at the packing house the apples are thoroughly washed then sorted for color size and quality the highest-quality selections are then prepared for transport to a market apples must be prepared for this journey and stored to keep fresh for storage more than a short period of time apples are placed in controlled atmosphere rooms to maintain their crispness and flavor in a controlled atmosphere storage facility the removal of oxygen and carbon dioxide slows the natural ripening process and allows us to supply fresh apples to customers year-round without this technology apples would continue to ripen after harvest decreasing their shelf life with a controlled atmosphere when the apples are taken out later for packing and shipping they taste as if they were just picked we can store fruit for better part of the year and still deliver with great quality we store apples until the first part to middle of the summer and the condition is amazing after storage apples are carefully packaged by hand into cartons ready for grocery stores fruit markets and restaurants around the world local markets may stock as many as nine varieties grown in Washington State if they eat in Washington Apple they may come back next week for another Washington Apple because it's going to be a good experience and that's what we want we want a good eating experience you as Washington apples make their way to your marketplace our growers Packers and shippers follow strict guidelines and regulations to ensure that every Apple is a quality Apple every commercial orchard in Washington state is subject to the food safety and Modernization Act food safety is taken very seriously by our industry and there are multiple checkpoints within the growing packing and shipping process that evaluate our apples for high standards we implement rigorous food safety standards that ensure that we're doing the best to begin this piece of fruit on its journey to the consumer in the safest fashion we can and then we can put it in a box and put in a truck and send it to our customers with a complete faith that we've sent them a high-quality world-class piece of fruit that is food safe it's always a constant process to make sure your packing line is clean everything is safe workers are safe as soon as the apples come in they are put in the tank the tank washes them it sanitizes them it breaks up some of the natural wax and debris and then it's brought up to the presort people in the presort pull out large defects to try to get the apples ready to go through the line without spreading any fungus or pieces of fruit that might damage the machine they're rinsed off we have a hyper cleaner that can blow some of the debris Zan's and decay off the apples so they're able to be seen when they go through the visual sorter we check a sample of each lot that we're gonna put on the load and sometimes we do multiple samples of each lot they take pictures they number the defects and make sure the fruits in grade make sure the fruit meets customer it's a visual inspection staff is trained they know what to look for we're checking for long-term storage issues like decay or any kind of breakdown that way you know checking the pressure checking internals checking temperature new Gale is a hard what's that 18 pounds yeah you know some varieties may show less pressure like a golden just depends on a lot for the variety and the size every large orchard in Washington is also subject to chemical residue testing on its fruit Washington apples undergo meticulous evaluation to ensure they meet these requirements and are safe to eat Washington apple growers are committed to raising the safest and highest quality apples in the world were also committed to protecting our workers and many orchards are implementing increased worker safety programs when you bite into a Washington Apple you can be sure that it was grown by people who care about you and your family's health and safety [Music] Washington Apple growers are fortunate because of our location and climate there are very few insects and diseases that can harm the fruit we do however have a few pests that we must control keeping the orchard healthy is the first step in growing the best apples possible Washington growers select disease resistant fruit tree varieties and root stocks that work best in their specific location and growing conditions our growers try to reduce unnecessary environmental stresses on their trees proper orchard placement soil and water management pruning and pest management keep our apple trees productive and healthy our growers are experts in integrated pest management there are many techniques used by Washington growers to reduce pest and disease pressure the pest management is really complicated in one aspect and simple in the other and it's how much damage can I sustain without affecting my beneficial population so my Predators and that's a fine line and it's different for every location our biggest pest I set would say would be Kalima it was introduced from Central Asia without any of its natural enemies and coddling moth in this part of the world without control will infest a hundred percent of the fruit causing great damage the insect that lays an egg on the Apple and the worm burrows into the apple ok so you've heard of a wormy Apple well that's coddling moth so we release pheromones so a sex pheromone so we confuse the guys right so the guys are all confused and bump into one another and they don't find the apple or the female so we're good there some growers choose to include organic practices in their orchards growers adhere to strict standards to raise USDA certified organic apples they are only allowed to use certain organic materials to fight disease and pest pressures then we have plant nutritional or plant disease stuff like mildew and so forth because limen sulfur's you know the old Bordeaux type mixtures lots of oils some of them would be peppermint oil or spearmint less I know they are smells great right so it's like having a cup of tea out here but we use a lot of different oils and and inorganic oils we use calcium's so a lot of different calcium's not just for nutrition but we use it for products like sunburns so if you see here you've got a Honeycrisp and you've got this white substance on the outside that's basically just calcium who wipes right off it's completely safe and it helps control some of the insects and it also controls sunburn and and keeps the fruit nutrition good many Washington apple growers use both conventional and organic practices this allows them to offer consumers unlimited choices at the marketplace we are the perfect state to grow organic freedom we don't have a lot of the same issues that the East Coast with rain and scab and I mean we really are in a desert here so so we're in the perfect situation to be able to grow the best organic fruit in the world here in Washington State [Applause] [Music] along with integrated pest management Washington Apple growers are also using new technology to improve their apples everything is different now it was much easier years ago now and there's so much technology into it it's it's gonna take the young ones to keep up with it all the technology is growing fast and it's going to continue to grow starting with the orchards growers are using new practices to improve efficiency many are installing high density single spindle tree planting patterns they use trellis systems for additional support listen particular orchards a single spindle about 1450 trees an acre its high-density fruit from those trees might be a size size and a half larger than maybe a standard freestanding you know semi dwarf or a seedling type rut stock the fruit you know is more conducive to better labor savings you know it's safer it's convenient to pick you know Labor has been an issue getting enough guys so you know we're trying to plant these modernized orchards because there's a lot of benefits but the volume per acre is more consistent and it's probably a little higher on the volume per acre than our freestanding trees more trees per acre you know just a better entire orchard experience for efficiency food quality you know labor savings everything you see all kinds of different ideas [Music] everybody's gonna have to try and see what's best for their particular location and variety growers are also moving into better safety technology for their harvest workers platforms are starting to replace ladders on some orchards which give the harvest crews better footing and balance while picking the fruit as the fruit grows washington growers also use weather data to improve production and product quality optimize resource use and reduce environmental impact collects large amounts of data on temperature and solar radiation soil temperature rainfall humidity and what growers can do and their advisors is plug that information into prediction models determine when pests diseases and other things can are going to become a problem and help them time the treatments that they need to make technology has also changed the way apples are packed in warehouses throughout Washington we want the consumer to have a good eating experience every time they pick up an apple so we use all this technology to make sure that they do by using powerful optical sorting platforms our growers are ensuring consistently high quality in every box of apples the visual sorter helps sort the apples based on color and defects takes 270 pictures for Apple looking at defects color and shape deciding what different defects are after and it goes through an internal sorter the internal soria weights the internal quality of the apples after the internal sorter they're weighed all that information is put into the computers to decide which drop but that app will go based on color defect shapes weight as it's going onto the cuts to go to the drop that information is sent to the sticker machine the sticker machine puts the the correct sticker on the Apple a large or small Apple and then it's taken down the line to the correct drop where it's dropped into the right grade and size to be put in the box those boxes go through the process where they are sealed and stamped correctly and that continues to the robot machine which separates those boxes out and palletize them before they put the storage traceability and accountability are important to Washington growers when they're stamped they're stamped with the correct variety grade pack type tray packer bag you put a barcode on each box it's a serial it has all the information from the grower to the pic date variety size so that when it's delivered to the customer there's an issue we can trace everything back to the box the best technology mixed with responsible growing practices and care for our workers allow us to deliver high quality and ethically grown apples to the world [Music] since the 1800s Washington growers have been committed to providing their customers with the best possible apples after the Great Depression growers realized the importance of a consistent statewide marketing entity the Washington State Apple Commission was formed in 1937 by the state legislature to promote education advertising and market development on behalf of all growers with a mistake today the Commission contracts with 12 representative offices around the world these representatives implement promotional programs to communicate the Washington difference to consumers around the world for decades Washington has been known as the best producer of Red Delicious apples a trademark that international markets appreciate this area is one of the best areas in the world for Red Delicious as you can see we have beautiful type beautiful color and they had the keeping quality that some of the areas don't have they can expect great quality from us you know we export a lot of our Red Delicious and for good reason these apples hold very well and they deliver we deliver Red Delicious all over the world they can be on a ship for 60 days and they'll still deliver with good quality I don't know if anyone else in the world can quite do that but we do it very well and we do it a lot whether it's Red Delicious or any other variety Washington growers make sure that what they grow will offer a consistent taste and bite year-round we want to make sure that we pick the varieties that we know are gonna be good keepers that are gonna last long I mean we we ship apples all year round and there's a lot of different varieties out there that might not hold up as well as others that plays a big factor for us because we do want to continue supplying our customers with top quality fruit with that when they take a bite of it doesn't matter whether it's in the fall or early summer they're still getting a fresh fresh taste whenever they eat one of those apples we also look at not just the varieties but the different strains and varieties of into different strains of Reds just different strains of galas and pinks and everything else out there we try to get what we can when as far as best color and what we know is gonna deliver the best Washington has the best condition the best storage and all the right elements to make sure that that consumer has the best quality all year round we can still produce the best apples for all consumers in all parts of the world whether it's domestic or export we will not disappoint and that we won't have to get apples from other parts of the world because we can meet the volume and demand for everybody [Music] [Music]

Channel: Washington Apples

Views: 28,017

Keywords: apples, apple, washington, washingtonstate, washingtonapples, waapples, orchard, orchards, appleorchards, fruit, treefruit, applepacking, packingapples, family farms, growers, apple growers, washington apple growers, US apples, healthy, healthy food, farm, farmers, apple farmers, farming apples, harvest, apple harvest, agriculture, horticulture, eat apples, yakima, wenatchee, apple education, ag education, apple industry, washington apple industry, apple varieties, washington apple commission

Id: txzs7oqL_kE

Length: 35min 19sec (2119 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 05 2019