Washington’s apple crop revised downwards

Washington State’s 2018/19 apple crop has been revised down 11% to 116.9 million 18-kg boxes. The revised estimates come as no surprise, with the first hints of a smaller-than-expected crop coming in late August during the annual Apple Outlook Conference in Chicago. The bad news was confirmed last week by the Washington State Tree Fruit Association in an announcement to its members. All major varieties seem to have been affected by the drop in volumes. At harvest time, crop load was discovered on trees and between trees, and variable maturity within each orchard. Annual crop predictions are always, by definition, best estimates and subject to change as the harvest progresses. However, the variance was larger than usual this year, prompting the organisation to ask its members to revise their estimates for a second official summation.