News

Cascade of setbacks whacks this year's apple crop

A line of customers stretches more than 100 yards at Grandad's Apples on a Saturday in October. Farmstands, U-pick orchards and other retail agritourism destinations were a bright spot in a season that dealt apple growers numerous setbacks.

By Bill Moss, Published: October 29, 2025

If it weren’t for bad luck, Henderson County apple growers would have no luck at all.

That might as well be the benediction for the tail end of the 2024 season and the breadth of this season, which traditionally ends around Halloween. For the past 13 months, growers have endured one setback after another — from the catastrophic — you know her name — to the usual — frost damage, hail storms, an overabundance of rain, labor uncertainty.

“It messed a lot of apples up and it was very widespread across the county,” said Jerred Nix, who with his dad, Jeff, grows around 75 acres of apples in the Bearwallow community and on Sugarloaf Mountain. “This has been a crazy year. We really hadn’t had a year like this. Everybody was begging for apples.”

The “begging for apples” part would have been an upside of a down year — if growers had apples to sell. For a variety of reasons, many did not. A single peck from a hailstorm pellet can demote a fresh apple to juice apple status in a split second.

“This is one of the widest spread hail events that I’ve seen in a long, long time,” Edneyville grower Kenny Barnwell told WLOS-TV on May 9.

While he conceded this week that the situation was “better than it was this time last year,” Agriculture Extension Service Director Terry Kelley said a rebound to make up for Helene damage failed to materialize.

“We would have liked to have a better season this year than we’ve had,” he said. “It’s been awfully wet for one thing. Of course, we had some pretty bad hailstorms and short pollination season so the crop’s down and the quality is probably a little below average.

“Following up last year’s catastrophe we certainly wish we would have had a better season,” Kelley said, estimating that farmers harvested less than 50 percent of a full crop. “It may not be the worst it’s been but it’s not good.”

U-pick and farmstands a bright spot

Eight months after the hurricane, Mother Nature again wrecked orchards, this time at the beginning of the season instead of the end.

“We had one (hailstorm) that was really widespread and we had two or three others that were not quite so widely spread,” Kelley said. “It’s hard to find anybody that wasn’t affected by hailstorms this year. Anytime we get something like that it probably has biggest effect on the wholesale market” — growers supplying supermarkets and other retailers that demand a perfect looking apple.

“In a pick-your-own orchard, apples are still good,” he said. “The retail market doesn’t get as affected as the wholesale market. Frankly that short pollination season was just as bad. It was cold and windy and rainy” — and the bees’ work was cut to 10 days from the optimum three weeks.

On the relief front, the news is no better.

While crop insurance checks have gone out, relief money for Helene damage has been a trickle.

“A lotta folks are kind of disappointed with what they’ve gotten,” Kelley said. “USDA allocated $221 million for additional aid back in September. We haven’t heard anything on the specifics yet.”

The USDA’s tree assistance program, conservation program and livestock checks have paid claims.

“But all those are reimbursement programs; you’ve got to do the work before you get paid for it,” he said. Adding to the farmers’ aggravation, “they can’t turn (applications) in right now because the government’s shut down. It basically rubs salt in the wound and causes things to be delayed more than it would have.”

On a sun-splashed Saturday in mid-October, shoppers filled the regular and overflow parking lot at Grandad’s Apples and a line to buy fried apple pies, apple cider donuts and apple slushies stretched for more than a hundred yards outside.

“From a retail standpoint I think it’s holding up good,” Kelley said. “We had a great Apple Festival — folks were getting rid of apples left and right. I think the local market has been pretty strong.”

Rejected by FEMA

Because the Nixes won a contract through the state’s farm-to-school program to deliver sliced apples to kids, they had to buy apples from growers who did have a crop.

“I didn’t have no apples because hail took me out,” Jerred said.

Meanwhile, like other growers, the Nixes are fighting the disaster aid bureaucracy.

“We received two payments but that’s all,” he said. “Dad’s been dealing with FEMA. I think we’ve been rejected like 15 or 20 times.”

Nix finds that to be ironic, given that the wipeout of a seven-acre orchard from the epic Clear Creek floodwaters last September has become a landmark visual. The flooding swept trees and farm equipment downstream, leaving a barren sandy beach.

“It’s been on every poster from here to Timbuktu,” he said. “A picture from a drone that was up above my house has been on every poster everywhere.”

Nix surmises that apple crop damage of one form or another must have been widespread because of the demand and price.

“There’s usually a quota of so many bins and that’s all you’re allowed” to ship to processors. “This year it was ‘Bring every apple you can’ and that tells me there was no crop,” he said. “Even juice apples at the beginning was 18 cents” — when 5 cents  a pound or less is common. “Apples was the hottest they’ve been in 15 years.”

High demand and the greatly diminished supply resulted in a short season.

“This had been the earliest everybody’s finished picking in years,” Nix said. “People finished picking at the end of September where normally they finish at the beginning of November. It’s been a very abnormal year in a lot of different aspects.”