On a sunny June morning at Hickory Ridge Orchard a few miles southeast of Mexico, Missouri, Brandt Schisler walked down a row of apple trees, picking fruits that had succumbed to a variety of diseases. He checked them to see how infected they were and threw them on the ground to help save the rest of the tree.
Two of the most infectious diseases he’s battling in his orchard are called bitter rot and fire blight.
“The biggest challenge I've had are from some of these older trees that have been here for 35 years or so, they have a disease called bitter rot,” Schisler said. “Bitter rot is very hard to control, especially from an organic standpoint. It just starts taking over the orchard.”
Schisler’s orchard is one of over 100 in Missouri that combined to sell more than $13 million worth of their crops in 2022, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
This year’s cicada outburst, which saw two broods of periodical cicadas emerge at the same time, has worsened the spread of diseases, especially fire blight. The disease originally got into Schisler’s orchard through invasive Callery pear trees, which are very susceptible to it.
“Fire blight is a bacteria that gets in an open wound on the tree,” Schisler said. “And the bottom side of all my branches on my trees were just riddled with the cicada strikes used to lay their eggs.”
Peng Tian, an extension professor at the University of Missouri in the plant science division, said cicadas can potentially hasten the spread of diseases if the bacteria is already in the area. Fire blight bacteria can build up on trees and cause insects to mistake it for a tasty treat.
“The (bacteria) looks like a small dew,” Tian said. “Those types of dew actually attract the insects like, ‘Let me check what it is, maybe something nutritious.’ So they touch it, and they fly to the flower or other susceptible parts of the plant like small twigs or tender leaves.”
This added disease pressure comes after a few years of difficult weather conditions for growing apples in Missouri.
In 2023, a drought and freezes late in the spring hurt apple harvest numbers, according to Jan Wooten. She has been in the apple business for over 30 years at Sunshine Valley Farms in Rogersville.
“The fluctuating temperatures are killing us,” Wooten said. “And so we get warm — too warm, too soon — the buds break dormancy, and then we got freezes.”
Wooten said even if the apples manage to survive a freeze, frost damage can still affect the way they look, feel and taste.
“Frost damages the skin texture. It's just cosmetic, but there's rough, rough skin,” Wooten said. “It can cover the whole apple, can cover part of the apple, and cosmetically, they're not as attractive.”
Last year, Wooten’s harvest was reduced by more than 95%. This year, Wooten has seen better weather, and predicts that she will have a “modest” apple crop that is better than last year but still well below her average.
However, this will be her last year growing apples, as she doesn’t expect climate and labor challenges at her southwest Missouri farm to recede.
At Hickory Ridge Orchard in Mexico, Schisler is trying to grow more varieties of apples to combat disease pressure moving forward.
“I'm planting a lot of what they call heritage breeds or heirloom varieties,” Schisler said. “They're close to 200-year-old varieties that maybe have been lost with time. But they have high disease resistance.”
Schisler said he won’t know for sure what toll diseases will take on this year’s crop until harvest time this fall.
This story was originally published by Missouri Business Alert, a fellow member of the KC Media Collective.
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