2025 tree fruit crop promising, but faces challenges

YAKIMA — The 2025 apple crop could be one of the biggest in Washington history, but the ultimate outcome for the season depends on things outside growers’ control.  

“The crop is estimated at 142 million standard 40-pound boxes of fresh apples,” said Jon DeVaney, president of the Washington State Tree Fruit Association, in a press release. 

That would match the biggest crop in state history, but there are factors that could keep all those apples from being harvested, DeVaney said. 

“Growers reported that labor shortages and market conditions may drive down the actual number of harvested apples,” he said. 

Even with some fruit left on the trees, 2025 will be the third large crop in a row.  

“Challenging economic conditions including concerns about labor supply during harvest means that many growers will be more selective in what they pick,” DeVaney said. “As a result, there is a high probability that the final harvested crop will be smaller than the potential reflected in this forecast.” 

The pear harvest for 2025 is forecast to be about 16.8 million boxes, a dramatic rebound from a very bad 2024. 

“We had a really rough time last year with some cold weather damage in this late winter (and) early spring of 2024, which resulted in one of the smallest pear crops we’d had in a couple of decades,” Devaney said in a separate interview.  

The 2024 pear crop was about 10 million boxes.  

Growers had to deal with a severe summer drought that substantially reduced the water available to junior water rights holders in the Yakima Valley.  

“(Water) storage in the Yakima Basin reservoirs was 20% full, with 218,000 acre-feet, which is 44% of average,” according to a press release from the US Bureau of Reclamation. 

Junior water rights make up more than half the water rights holders in the Yakima Valley, the press release said. 

The only constant in agriculture is change, and change is coming to Washington’s apple industry as consumer tastes change.  

DeVaney said Galas account for the largest percentage of Washington production at 18%. Honeycrisp make up the second-highest percentage of the state’s crop at 15% and Granny Smith places third, making up about 14% of the 2025 crop.  

Honeycrisp moved ahead of both Red Delicious and Granny Smith varieties for the first time this year, DeVaney said. Red Delicious accounts for about 12% of the 2025 crop.  

Cosmic Crisp makes up about 9.5% of the crop. That places the variety in the top five in state production for the first time. Fujis account for about 9.1%.  

Washington produces about 90% of all organic apples grown in the U.S. 

“Organics again make up about 15% of this year’s overall crop,” DeVaney said.  

Inflation has pushed up the production costs of commodities, including tree fruit, and the prices growers receive hasn’t kept up, DeVaney said.  

“You can deliver great quality, but you’re not necessarily getting the prices you need to meet your production costs,” DeVaney said. “Consumers are feeling the inflationary pressures, and retailers are really resistant to raising prices enough to meet the actual inflation and production costs that growers are seeing.”