Apple Growers Prepare for Third Bumper Crop in a Row

Aug 23, 2024

By Ellie Katz

Michigan apple growers are expecting another above-average harvest for the third year in a row.

The Michigan Apple Committee is forecasting a harvest of around 30 million bushels of apples. That’s slightly lower than last year’s haul, but still about five million bushels higher than average.

“It’s pretty unusual to have three big years in a row. So we’re kind of wondering: ‘Is this the new normal?’" said Nikki Rothwell, with the Northwest Michigan Horticulture Research Station. "People wonder if it’s climate-related, if it’s warmer, are we getting a longer season?”

Rothwell said advanced breeding in apple trees could also help explain it.

Regardless of the cause, she said the big crops raise other long-term questions about apple storage and sales.

That’s because back-to-back bumper crops can create storage problems and affect pricing, said Travis Bratschi, an apple grower in Grand Traverse County.

“Fruit doesn’t get better in storage. Your grades only have one way to go, and that’s down,” he said. “That’s worrisome because … the longer they’re [in storage], the quality tends to deteriorate.”

Advancements in storage technology have made it so growers can store apples for up to 10 months; Bratschi said he’s still selling apples harvested in 2023.

Some of last year’s apples are still waiting to be sold, and that glut could clog up storage.

But right now, Bratschi said fresh apples — fruit that’s not sold to a processor for fillings or applesauce — are fetching a decent price.

Plus, he said, bad forecasts in other major apple-producing states could help ease pressures in Michigan.

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Video: Why Your Food Future Could be Trapped in a Seed Morgue

In a world of PowerPoint overload, Rex Bernardo stands out. No bullet points. No charts. No jargon. Just stories and photographs. At this year’s National Association for Plant Breeding conference on the Big Island of Hawaii, he stood before a room of peers — all experts in the science of seeds — and did something radical: he showed them images. He told them stories. And he asked them to remember not what they saw, but how they felt.

Bernardo, recipient of the 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award, has spent his career searching for the genetic treasures tucked inside what plant breeders call exotic germplasm — ancient, often wild genetic lines that hold secrets to resilience, taste, and traits we've forgotten to value.

But Bernardo didn’t always think this way.

“I worked in private industry for nearly a decade,” he recalls. “I remember one breeder saying, ‘We’re making new hybrids, but they’re basically the same genetics.’ That stuck with me. Where is the new diversity going to come from?”

For Bernardo, part of the answer lies in the world’s gene banks — vast vaults of seed samples collected from every corner of the globe. Yet, he says, many of these vaults have quietly become “seed morgues.” “Something goes in, but it never comes out,” he explains. “We need to start treating these collections like living investments, not museums of dead potential.”

That potential — and the barriers to unlocking it — are deeply personal for Bernardo. He’s wrestled with international policies that prevent access to valuable lines (like North Korean corn) and with the slow, painstaking science of transferring useful traits from wild relatives into elite lines that farmers can actually grow. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. But he’s convinced that success starts not in the lab, but in the way we communicate.

“The fact sheet model isn’t cutting it anymore,” he says. “We hand out a paper about a new variety and think that’s enough. But stories? Plants you can see and touch? That’s what stays with people.”

Bernardo practices what he preaches. At the University of Minnesota, he helped launch a student-led breeding program that’s working to adapt leafy African vegetables for the Twin Cities’ African diaspora. The goal? Culturally relevant crops that mature in Minnesota’s shorter growing season — and can be regrown year after year.

“That’s real impact,” he says. “Helping people grow food that’s meaningful to them, not just what's commercially viable.”

He’s also brewed plant breeding into something more relatable — literally. Coffee and beer have become unexpected tools in his mission to make science accessible. His undergraduate course on coffee, for instance, connects the dots between genetics, geography, and culture. “Everyone drinks coffee,” he says. “It’s a conversation starter. It’s a gateway into plant science.”