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Late Freeze Shortens Fall Apple Season For Indiana Orchards

(AP Photo/Casey Smith)

 

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — During what would normally be primetime for Midwest apple-picking, orchards around Indiana are running out of apples early this season following a late spring freeze that obliterated much of the state’s crop. Peter Hirst, a tree fruit specialist at Purdue University, says sub-freezing snaps in late April and early May impacted roughly 70% of the crop. Spring frosts in New York’s Hudson Valley and parts of Pennsylvania and Virginia are also expected to reduce the bloom on several apple varieties this year, although the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates the nation’s 2020 apple crop to be just 3% less than in 2019.