CHICAGO – Apple industry leaders have met and issued their yearly forecast regarding apple production nationwide and in individual states.

The U.S. Apple Association held its 127th annual Industry Outlook conference on August 18-19 in Chicago; the conference is considered to be the definitive forecast for apple production and builds on USDA forecasts. According to a U.S. Apple analysis of USDA data, total U.S. apple production for the 2022-2023 crop year will be more than 10.7 billion pounds or 255 million bushels. This represents a 2.7 percent increase compared to last year’s production figure and is 3.5 percent less than the five-year production average.

Michigan’s official crop estimate of 29.5 million bushels or 1.239 billion pounds of apples was announced on August 19 at the conference. According to the Michigan Apple Committee, this figure is well above the average for the Michigan apple industry. “Ideal weather conditions in spring and summer, dedicated growers and stored energy from 2021’s smaller crop has resulted in a large, high-quality apple crop for Michigan,” said Michigan Apple Committee’s Executive Director Diane Smith. It is often the case that a bad apple crop one year will be followed by a better than average apple crop the following year.

Average annual crop size is approximately 24 million bushels in Michigan. According to the USDA, Michigan growers harvested 15.6 million bushels of apples in 2021. There are more than 14.9 million apple trees in commercial production, covering 34,500 acres on 775 family run farms in the state. There are many factors that contribute to the size of an apple crop in addition to the size of the previous year’s crop, especially the weather. To make the estimate, growers and other industry experts report on what they are seeing in various regions of the state, then come to a consensus on the likely crop size.

“The last couple of years were bad, mainly due to the weather,” said Trish Taylor, marketing manager for Riveridge Produce Marketing, a vertically integrated apple grower, packer, shipper, and marketer based in Sparta in the heart of Michigan’s apple growing region. “We had no late frost this year, which we did have the last two years. This year we had the perfect spring, meaning a dormant spring with no early warmup; and when the spring came the temperatures were perfect.” Riveridge Produce Marketing represents one half of Michigan’s fresh apple crop. The top 10 apple producing states are usually ranked as Washington, New York, Michigan, Pennsylvania, California, Virginia, North Carolina, Oregon, Ohio and Idaho. Washington usually accounts for about 69 percent of apple production in the United States.