Volume XIV, No. 4 Summer 2010 Mc The newsletter of the New England Apple Association In search of gnarly trees page 6 Recipes from Champlain Keep your Orchards apples cold-- page 8 and coming page 2 Orchard Run Russell Powell, executive director Keep ’em cold, and coming New England If you are much older than age 30, you can probably Apple Association remember the unpleasant experience of biting into a McIntosh Board of Directors apple at this time of year and being supremely disappointed Gordon Waterman, chair by its bland taste and mealy texture. Happily for apple lovers, Romac Sales, Sanford, Maine those days are long behind us. The Macouns Mo Tougas, vice chair While the bulk of the 2009 New England apple crop has Tougas Family Farm, Northborough, Massachusetts now been sold, you can still find some of our region’s apples I purchased John Rogers, secretary-treasurer in the produce aisles among those from Washington state and in mid-June Rogers Orchard, Southington, Connecticut countries in the southern hemisphere. The reason is controlled at Bolton Orchards Andrea Darrow atmosphere, or CA, storage. were a revelation. Green Mountain Orchards, Putney, Vermont Controlled atmosphere storage was developed by Dr. Barney Hodges Jr. Robert Smock of Cornell University in 1940, but it did not Sunrise Orchards, Middlebury, Vermont come into widespread commercial use until the 1980s. CA The ones I purchased in mid-June were a revela- Ellen MacAdam works by reducing oxygen and increasing carbon dioxide in tion: crisp and flavorful—not quite as tangy as when McDougal Orchards, Springvale, Maine storage facilities, since apples, like humans, respire. Reducing they first come off the tree, but a reasonable facsimile. Ned O’Neill the amount of oxygen slows down the apples’ natural ripening They were superior in flavor and texture to many of hen J. P. Sullivan and Co., Ayer, Massachusetts process. the blandly sweet, hard-textured varieties that are W Chuck Souther After they are harvested, the apples are placed in air-tight, raised and shipped here in part because of their ability you pick Apple Hill Farm, Concord, New Hampshire refrigerated warehouse rooms. The oxygen content in each to withstand long-distance travel and handling. room is reduced from 21 percent to 2.5 percent, the carbon Of course, you may have to look a little harder to dioxide level is increased from 0.25 percent to between 2 you pick the best! Executive Director find a New England apple at this time of year, and it is Russell Powell percent and 5 percent, and high humidity is maintained. CA still possible to bite into a mushy one, without its char- storage radically slows the ripening process, allowing New McIntosh News is published by the New England Apple As- acteristic flavor. If so, chances are it won’t be because sociation and distributed free to apple growers, policymakers, England’s growers to provide crisper, more flavorful apples of how the grower raised or stored the apple. A more agricultural organizations, and other friends of the New England year-round. apple industry. The nonprofit New England Apple Association is likely culprit is the supermarket, for failing to keep the a grower-funded organization charged with raising awareness CA storage extends the season for New England apples by apples cold, or rotating fruit in the loose bins where of apple varieties grown in New England. supplementing cold storage, the traditional method for keep- they are commonly and attractively displayed. For information regarding ing apples fresh post-harvest. The apples are rushed to cold Or it may be that you forgot to refrigerate the membership, editorial submissions storage warehouses as soon as they are picked, and placed in or advertising, please contact: apples when you got them home. Apples look beauti- refrigerated storerooms, where the temperature is maintained ful mounded in a wooden bowl on the dining room New England at 32 degrees, with high humidity. This, too, slows down the table. But unless they are eaten in a day or so at room Apple Association ripening process, though not as effectively as CA storage. temperature, the ripening accelerates quickly beyond P. O. Box 41, Hatfield, MA 01038 Most apples in regular cold storage are sold by January or peak flavor and texture. 413-247-9966 February. So savor New England apples year-round. But [email protected] Last week, to my pleasant surprise, I found Macouns at keep them cold, and enjoy the last of the 2009 crop as Bolton Orchards in Bolton, Massachusetts. The Macoun crop Adams County Nursery, Inc. • Aspers, PA you get ready for the fresh harvest to resume again in (800) 377-3106 • (717) 677-4124 fax is usually gone by New Year’s, and historically they have not August. www.acnursery.com • Email: [email protected] www.newenglandapples.org been considered good keepers over the winter. But there are few better-tasting fresh apples. 2 McIntosh News Summer 2010 Summer 2010 McIntosh News 3 New video addresses proper storage and handling Website features improved recipes, home page Cider-making, pollination and the packing house to follow The New England Apple Association continues to through the search engine YouTube, a New England make upgrades to its Internet website, www.neweng- apples weblog and a Facebook social networking page. A video program on proper Sunrise Orchards in Middlebury, tain Orchards in Putney, Vermont. landapples.org, Here are some of the latest changes: Once on the New England Apples website, students storage and handling of apples will Vermont, and J. P. Sullivan in Ayer, Currently on the home page are a • On the home page beneath the slide show there and consumers can find more than a dozen video pro- be the next in a series featured on Massachusetts). three-part program about New Eng- is now a link to a featured recipe; grams about apples and photographs and descriptions of the Internet search engine YouTube The new programs will be added land apple varieties (with Chuck and • Apple icons have been added to improve the nearly 70 apple varieties grown in New England. Visitors and the New England Apple Asso- to 10 videos currently on YouTube Diane Souther of Apple Hill Farm main navigation, and the headings have been can learn about an apple’s parentage, physical character- ciation website, www.newengland- and the association website. A four- in Concord, New Hampshire, and reorganized and some renamed; istics, ripening time, flavor, and best usage. The number apples.org. Consumers are advised minute program on pick-your-own Greg Parzych of Rogers Orchards in • This newsletter is now available through a link of varieties pictured is expected to increase to about 100 to keep their apples cool and prevent etiquette featuring orchards from Southington, Connecticut, pruning on the home page, and can be downloaded as a this season. them from bruising in the new Connecticut, Massachusetts and Ver- (two parts), and grafting, the latter PDF; Visitors can search for New England orchards by program, one of more than a dozen mont was viewed more than 6,000 two narrated by Mo Tougas of Tougas • A new apple variety appears at the bottom of state, zip code, apple variety or other farm product they completed or in progress over the times in September and October Family Farm in Northborough, Mas- the left-hand column each time a visitor clicks sell, such as sweet corn or maple syrup, or find apple past two years. alone. Currently on the website’s sachusetts. to a new page; and recipes from breakfast through dessert. By mid-summer, the series will “Find an Orchard” page, it will move The project has been a regional • The recipes page has been redesigned to make Member orchards create and update their own list- be complete, with programs on pol- back to the home page August 1 to effort, funded with Specialty Crop better use of the space, and with added color. ings from the convenience of their own farm. lination (featuring several orchards), promote the 2010 fresh harvest. grants from Connecticut, Massachu- Grant funds are being sought to help fund the next By mid-June, the association website had attracted cider-making (from Carlson Or- A three-part series on apple pie- setts, New Hampshire and Vermont, round of changes, including technical assistance to mem- more than 200,000 hits since January 1, an increase of chards in Harvard, Massachusetts), making on the recipe page features and a grant from Northeast Farm ber orchards to ensure that they are getting maximum more than 40 percent from the same period in 2009. and the packing house (shot at Andrea Darrow of Green Moun- Credit’s AgEnhancement Program. value from their presence on the association site, and (Traffic to the site fluctuates depending on the time of from their own farm’s site; a Spanish language transla- year; the site attracted nearly one-quarter of a million tion; the addition of a section of educational activities for hits last September and October, the height of the fresh children; enhanced Search Engine Optimization (SEO); harvest.) Become and a rewrite of the site’s pages on education and nutri- We are always interested in ideas about how to make tion to make them more web friendly. the site better. Send your suggestions and ideas to a ‘friend’ Additions to the site since September include a [email protected]. on Facebook series of short video programs about apples, available Are you a friend of New England apples? If Orchards can add their imprint so, join us on Facebook! The association’s Face- book page can be found on the home page of the to ‘New England Apples’ brochure its website, www.newenglandapples.org.