National Apple Harvest Expected At 280M Bushels

USApple has increased its estimate for the 2024-2025 harvest.

“280 [million bushels] is an approximate adjustment of the adjustment, a recalibration of our August," noted Chris Gerlach is vice president of insights and analytics at USApple. .  And so that's not again an official number, but it's sort of where the numbers are pointing somewhere in the middle higher than 260 million, lower than 300 million.”

Gerlach noted that 280 million bushels is down roughly 3% from last year.  When it comes to the varieties: 

• The Honeycrip crop is expected to be 18 million bushels, down 32% year-over-year
• The Red Delicious crop is anticipated at 23 million bushels, down 8% from last year’s numbers
• The Gala crop is expected to be up 4% this year at 26 million bushels
• The Cosmic Crisp crop is forecast at 15 million bushels, up 66% year-over-year 

Gerlach added when it comes to Cosmic Crisp, the expectation is for more growth.  He pointed out in 2019, USApple predicted the 2024, Cosmic Crisp crop would be around 21.5 million bushels.

“30% more than what we theoretically produced this year.  So, our cosmic crisp expectation is still that we're not into full production that we still have some room to grow on there.  And it'll be interesting to see where that goes.”

USApple’s August production estimate was just under 260 million bushels.  Both Oregon and Washington reported a year-over-year decrease in the size of their apple crop.

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