(Asheville Citizen-Times) Henderson County’s 150 apple growers thought the disastrous 2007 Easter freeze was bad — until this year.
“I’ve got 15 percent of a crop, and I figure that’s a pretty good (average) number for the whole county,” said Kenny Barnwell, who grows 150 acres of apples. “And you know what’s really bad is we’re looking at historic prices — $200 a ton more than we’ve ever gotten out of our fruit before.”
Normally, Barnwell’s orchards would yield about 100,000 bushels of apples, a number that’s likely to decline to 15,000 bushels this year. That loss of 85,000 bushels, at a conservative figure of $8.40 a bushel, translates into a $714,000 loss.
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