Local orchards begin early apple harvest

KINDERHOOK (NEWS10) – Orchards throughout the Capital Region have started harvesting apples this week, a full two weeks earlier than usual.

Jake Samascott, one of the owners of Samascott Orchards, explained the shift in the harvest season.

"We definitely see a trend of everything growing earlier in the spring. So each spring seems to be getting earlier," said Samascott. "We knew right away in the spring, as trees were blooming two weeks ahead of time, we were worried about a frost coming and freezing off the crops, but that never came."

Both the weather and the types of apples available for planting contribute to the early harvest.

"There's newer varieties that are coming in early, and with the early spring, we're compounding the early varieties. We're really harvesting two weeks earlier than ever before," he said. He also noted that the warmer temperatures allowing for an early harvest do not threaten crop yields. "It'd be winter chilling hours that would give us a problem. But we generally get enough winter that our trees will still bloom the next year. So I don't think we're any risk of losing our crops in the near future."

This early harvest benefits orchards throughout the region financially.

"It just extends our season so we can sell more apples. We're starting earlier. We can sell stuff early season, and we can store it to keep selling it late and expands our market for juice, too," Samascott explained.

Alejandro del Peral, owner of Nine Pin Ciderworks in Albany, is equally enthusiastic about the early apple availability.

"This is by far the earliest that we've ever been able to get apples to make enough juice to start producing cider at this time of year," said del Peral. "From a business standpoint, it means that we have to store less in inventory from the previous year to meet the demand at this time."