Experts say this year’s apple crop in Iowa looks excellent. Maury Wills, bureau chief of the Iowa Department of Agriculture’s diversification and development bureau, says that’s in stark contrast to last year which was a bad year for the state’s apple industry.
“We really didn’t lose any producers or orchards due to the poor season we had last year,” Wills says. Last year, temperatures in early May dipped as low as 18 degrees right when the apple trees were blossoming. Wills says that took out a lot of last year’s crop.
Wills cited sales figures to illustrate the hit. About two-million dollars worth of Iowa-grown apples are typically sold in Iowa, but last year sales were under one million. “This season the apple crop looks excellent,” Wills says. Wills estimates there are 16-hundred acres of apple groves in Iowa.