Apple growers move to Honeycrisps for the money, despite the obstacles to growing them

Honeycrisp apples (Photo by Karolina Wojtasik, Bloomberg)

The popularity of an apple variety is making some farmers to go to extreme lengths to grow it.

It's called Honeycrisp. Its sweet taste and crisp texture are such a hit that it's now the fifth-most grown variety in the U.S. It's among the priciest, too: Honeycrisps are often twice or even three times as expensive as other varieties. But farmers who want to grow Honeycrisps, especially outside their original habitat of Minnesota, must deal with many obstacles, Deena Shanker and Lydia Mulvany report for Bloomberg. That's because, unlike most modern commercial varieties, Honeycrisps were bred for taste and texture instead of the ability to grow, store or ship well.

One problem is keeping the tree branches from growing too tall, too fast, so leaves don't block apples from getting sunlight. And the apples tend to get too big for consumers' tastes if not carefully tended, growers said. Another challenge: "The fruit is also vulnerable to bitter pit—small, sunken brown spots that sully an otherwise perfect orb. The flaw is a result of the trees’ inability to properly take up calcium from the soil. Growers are forced to spray their orchards with foliar calcium to boost their intake, but it’s not always enough," Shanker and Mulvaney report.

Harvesting and storage are also challenging because the fruits are so delicate. After all that work, only 55 to 60 percent of the fruit makes it to the store, Shanker and Mulvaney report. The higher cost of Honeycrisps is almost all absorbed by production costs; growers aren't taking home the extra. But growers are compelled to grow them, because they're so popular.

Meeting consumer demand isn't too hard for West Coast growers, especially in Washington state, but growers everywhere are hoping for an easier to cultivate apple variety that will match the Honeycrisp's popularity. Some contenders include the soon-to-hit-the-market Cosmic Crisp and the Opal.