Plenty o' pumpkins; apples are few

BY EILEEN BRADY
​THE NEWS JOURNAL OF WILMINGTON, OHIO

The first day of autumn usually triggers some kind of cider-craving mechanism in my brain. And while a global economy makes it possible to eat mediocre apples year- round, only those recently picked at an orchard are crisp and fresh enough to make it really feel like fall.
The perfect apples of my memory came in a small paper bag, which had a cute carrying handle, bearing the words “A&M Orchard.” I remember the sweet coolness of the Apple House and the cider we’d take home, unmatched in quality anywhere. 
It is the drink my young Ohio-bred nieces and nephews asked for by the name “side-uh,” influenced by their grandmother’s New York accent.
So I decided to restart a tradition of visiting the orchard near Midland and proposed a day of apple picking with my daughter, who eagerly tagged along.
We headed south on U.S. Route 68,

taking a short detour so I could point out my childhood home in Cuba, replete with stories of who handed out the best Halloween candy each year. 

The sun was shining, the roads were empty: a perfect first day of fall. We wound around the curves of State Route 251 and approached the orchard, and could soon see that it was teeming with ... parked cars. 
It seems that heading to A&M Orchard is a family tradition for much of the region, and they apparently approach the orchard from the other direction. But that’s a good thing, right? You want your favorite local businesses to be successful so you can keep returning to them. 
Turns out, we were lucky there were even apples to pick, because the Midwest has suffered its worst apple crop in recent memory. 
There’s been a lot of coverage, deservedly so, of 2012’s severe drought and its effects on U.S. corn production. There’s been less talk of the Midwest’s decimated apple crop, which had very little to do with drought. The mild winter coaxed the apple trees to bloom early, with gorgeous white blossoms filling the trees too soon. Then the April frost hit hard, killing almost 50 percent of A&M’s overall apple crop, which is on par with the production decrease across Ohio. 
“I knew it was going to happen when they bloomed at the end of March,” said Howard “Rau” Adae Jr., 58, whose parents and grandparents started the orchard in 1942. “April is the killer month.”
Peter Hirst, associate professor of horticulture at Purdue University told the Kokomo Tribune in Indiana that apple losses, like those facing A&M, have happened all over the Midwest, making the national harvest this year the worst since the 1930s.
Since he was a child, Adae has seen A&M Orchard face various years of decimated crops on the family’s 178 acres, 37 1/2 acres of which are filled with apple trees. Usually, though, the damage is not so widespread, and apple farmers can supplement with produce from other farms. That was not the case this year, with problems affecting most of the orchards east of the Mississippi. “Michigan really took the brunt of it,” Adae said.
Adae can rattle off the various years the apple crop was affected for one reason or another -- mild winter, extremely cold winter, cold spring, hurricane winds -- but says so without bitterness, as someone who just understands the down years as a part of doing business. And although the late frost in May 1966 was a down year for the family orchard, Adae grins as he remembers being allowed to miss school that season and drive around with his dad as they traveled elsewhere to supplement the crop.
A&M Orchard is still a family business for Adae and his wife, Cindi. It also produces strawberries and pumpkins, which are irrigated and able to stave off drought. The dry weather this summer actually helped some pumpkin crops do well this year, including at A&M. Ohio generally ranks in the top five states for pumpkin production, and occasionally is second only to Illinois. And, of course, it hosts the Circleville Pumpkin Show, Ohio’s oldest and largest festival, which attracts 100,000 people a day to Pickaway County.
So although this year you will be able to find plenty o’ pumpkins in the patches, local apples are more of a rare gem.
The saving grace for apple lovers is an “excellent crop” of the Golden Delicious variety of apples, Adae said, as well as a decent amount of a few other varieties, so apple aficionados will still be able to get their fix at A&M Orchard likely into November. And the cider is still flowing.