Honeycrisp apple becomes a star to area orchards

EGG HARBOR, Wis. -- Signs advertising Honeycrisp apples dot the Door County peninsula, where travelers and local families eagerly pony up $2 per pound or more for the prized fruit.

That's still cheaper than in Milwaukee, where Barb Lucking paid $3.25 for two Honeycrisp at a farmer's market. They're firm, she said, with "sweetness, but not tartness."

"I'll buy these all the time, where I'll pass up the other ones," said Lucking, 55.

Introduced in Wisconsin 16 years ago, Honeycrisp have been a boon to apple growers, some of whom might otherwise have gone out of business. They command two to three times the retail price of other varieties and grow best in the Midwest, giving growers here an edge on competition from Washington state, which dominates the apple market.

"It's been a very good thing to help keep the apple industry alive in the Midwest," said Doug Shefelbine, who has 25 acres of Honeycrisp on his orchard in Holmen in western Wisconsin. "The growers finally said, 'At least now, we're finally able to make some money and keep going.' "

The Honeycrisp, that miracle of the Midwestern apple industry, was nearly lost. Four test trees at the University of Minnesota suffered damage during a harsh winter and had been marked to be discarded when apple breeder David Bedford began work there nearly three decades ago.

"A little bit on a lark, I decided to undiscard it," Bedford said. "A couple years later, they started bearing fruit, and I was pleasantly pleased with the quality of it. I guess it's just one of those little nuances of fate."

An apple's flavor comes from slight variations in its sugar and acid levels. Honeycrisp is considered a "balanced" apple, something between a tart, acidic Granny Smith and the sugary, but sometimes bland Red Delicious.

But more important than its flavor, growers say, is Honeycrisp's texture. Many liken it to watermelon in the way the fruit breaks when bitten, releasing a spurt of juice. Bedford calls it "explosively crisp."

The cells in a Honeycrisp apple are unusually large, twice as big as in some other varieties, Bedford said. That allows each cell to hold more water, which it releases in a burst when cracked.

The university's apple breeding program released Honeycrisp in 1991. Early interest was mostly in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan, partly because of the university's location and partly because the tree does best in areas that have a cool early autumn with a significant drop in temperature at night.

Tim Byrne, vice president of sales and marketing for Pepin Heights orchard in Lake City, Minn., distributed samples of Honeycrisp in markets across the Midwest and South during its launch.

"The first response was usually, 'Wow!' because of the texture," Byrne said. "They had never experienced anything like that."

Orchards in the Midwest have been troubled by low prices and pressed by competition from Washington state, which produces more than 60 percent of the nation's apples.

Though more orchards are putting in Honeycrisp trees, it takes about three years for them to bear fruit, so supply still hasn't met demand. Most farm stands are sold out by Halloween, and Honeycrisp disappears from stores soon after.

The apple commands a higher price because it's difficult to grow.

The tree doesn't deliver calcium to the fruit, so farmers have to spray it with a calcium solution to prevent spots. Labor costs are higher as well because the apples must be thinned in the spring and then picked in two or three waves in the fall. Some farmers also need to clip the apples' stems to keep them from piercing the thin skin during transport.

"We like to call it not grower friendly, but consumer friendly," said Steve Wood, who runs Wood Orchard Market in Egg Harbor with his father and son. "If we grow Honeycrisp like Macintosh, we just don't get good apples at all."

The apple's quirks have made it less attractive to growers in Washington state, allowing those in the Midwest to establish themselves as the leading suppliers. But with the lure of high prices, interest and production in Washington has grown.

Washington will produce 400,000 boxes of Honeycrisp this year, said David Carlson, president of the Washington Apple Commission. Within a couple years, it will generate 1 million to 2 million boxes, with each box containing 40 pounds of fruit.

That would still be only 1 percent or 2 percent of Washington's overall production, Carlson said.

But it could make a big difference for smaller growers in the Midwest. They now worry about Washington flooding the market with cheaper produce of a lesser quality.

"That's the fear we have," Wood said.