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In strong market, apple growers will pick in the rain

Four days of rain with more on the way has broken the drought, saving parched apple orchards and recharging water levels of the Mills River.

The dry weather had caused the city of Hendersonville to impose voluntary water restrictions and city officials met last Wednesday to discuss the next phase of conservation measures. The rain since then has relieved the pressure on the water system.
“The heaviest rain across Henderson County has been across the eastern half toward Saluda and up toward Bat Cave and that area,” said Chris Horne, a meteorologist with the Greer, S.C., office of the National Weather Service. “Just roughly storm totals have ranged from nearly 2.4 inches at the Asheville Airport to the Hendersonville total of about 4 inches or so. As much as 6 or 7 inches of rain has fallen across the eastern part from Tuxedo to Saluda to the east side of Flat Rock up toward Bat Cave.”


Marvin Owings, director of the Henderson County Agriculture Extension Service, said the rain came just in time.
“It just makes it difficult for harvesting,” he said. “It makes it miserable for the harvest crews. It just gets pretty sloppy getting in and out of the fields. But we definitely needed this soaking rain that we’ve gotten. There were some orchards that were showing signs of real stress.”
The rain system that settled in on Thursday arrived just as growers ramped up to the peak of harvest.
There’s no waiting for the sun, “especially when you have a forecast of basically the rest of the week being rainy,” Owings said. “Some will hold off so they’re not actually harvesting in the rain but it’s still wet and the trees are wet. But yes, the fruit needs to be picked. It just makes the harvest more of a challenge.”
What they pick, they can sell.
“The market is strong,” Owings said. “Prices are pretty good. I was talking to one of the packers and he’s got more orders than he knows what to do with.”
That can translate to higher prices, he said, although the strong demand now is for process apples, which bring less than half per pound what fresh apples command. “Close to half the market is process,” Owings said. “Prices are holding pretty good but with process apples you take what they’re offering. There’s not much dickering on price.”

The unsettled pattern assures muddy fields and wet farmers through the week.

“A wedge of high pressure is what we call this pattern," Horne said. "With an upslope flow a lot of rain gets wrung out across the eastern and southeastern slopes. For the most part it’s been mostly Atlantic moisture but there is some Gulf moisture from time to time. It’s rained steadily and the intensity varies periodically.”
The forecast promises “more of the same,” Horne said. “I’m hoping it’ll be a little less dreary through Tuesday and Wednesday but there’s still high probability of lingering rain and showers both of those days.”
The forecast called for highs Tuesday and Wednesday of 72 with likely showers and possible thundershowers. Overnight lows will be in the high 50s to low 60s until Thursday and Friday, when lows will dip down to about 50. The first sign of drier weather is Saturday, which is expected to be partly cloudy, and Sunday, when the sun should return.