Sep 4, 2012

Editorial – Apples in Quebec

In late July, I spent a couple of days exploring the apple industry in Quebec, Canada. I wasn’t alone. About 180 others joined me, members of the International Fruit Tree Association (IFTA).

It was an intense two days spent visiting more than a dozen sites, including processors, cideries, research fields, farm markets, u-picks – but mostly apple orchards.

One thing we noticed right away: There were plenty of apples on the trees.

Quebec was hit by frosts last spring, but not as hard as Michigan, New York state or Ontario. In early August, Quebec’s 2012 apple crop estimate was about 5.3 million bushels, down roughly 10 percent from 2011 (5.8 million bushels) and down 15 percent from the five-year average (about 6.2 million bushels). Frost was the biggest culprit in the reduction, along with some older orchards being pulled out. Hail also damaged the 2012 crop, but in early August it was too soon to accurately quantify hail losses, according to Paul Emile Yelle, an IFTA member and apple crop consultant based in Quebec.

IFTA provided some background information on Quebec’s apple industry:

Apples have been grown in the province for nearly 400 years, since Louis Hebert planted the first trees in the early 1600s. There are 550 apple growers today, down from about 900 15 years ago. Apples are the main income for nearly 200 of the growers. The province contains roughly 14,000 apple acres, about 85 percent of them bearing. Plenty of older plantings have been pulled out in the last five years, and not all of them have been replaced. The average yield is about 400 bushels per acre (800 to 1,000 bushels per acre are common in newer blocks). McIntosh is the main variety, followed by Cortland, Spartan and Empire. Honeycrisp and Gala are on the rise, according to IFTA.

Quebec’s main apple-growing region is the most cold-challenged commercial growing area in the world (even though, like I said, the spring freezes didn’t hit the province as hard as they hit other areas), even though it’s further south than other growing areas such as Yakima, Wash., according to IFTA.

Quebecers are the products of a mixed French/British culture. Some of our grower-hosts spoke perfect English, while others needed a translator (but I’ll bet their English is still better than my French). Land in the province can be measured in acres, hectares or French arpents. Tree spacing can be measured in feet or meters (or centimeters), according to IFTA.

The Quebec tour will give me plenty to write about over the next few months. More stories will follow in future issues.

By Matt Milkovich, Managing Editor