Autumn is here, English apples are in season and this year they're said to be particularly big, sweet and juicy because of the summer growing conditions. The national crop is up fifteen percent, the biggest for years, as the resurgence in planting apple trees continues.

But not everything in the orchard is rosy. Some growers in Somerset say their branches are almost bare, particularly in low lying areas hit by heavy rain and floods last winter.

At Charlton Orchards in Creech St Michael near Taunton they have fifteen acres of cooking and eating apples but for many of the varieties they grow here the crops are far from heavy. It's yet another knock-on effect of all that rain we had last winter.

There's very few apples at all. These should be dripping, hanging down on the ground now at this time of year. The problem is down in the roots. The rain saturated the ground for so long, the deep roots have been killed off.

When they need to draw water up and nutrients from below, there are no roots left so although there are small roots in the surface which stop the tree falling over, the down deep roots have all gone.

It wasn't just the winter. When spring came and the rain continued, there was a lack of bees and other insects during the key pollination time.

The most mature apple trees in the Charlton Orchard would normally be relied upon to give a really good crop of apples but because of all that rain last winter, there's barely a crate of apples between them.

It's certainly not a disaster though. Plums, greengages, damsons and cherries have done very well this year and some apple varities weathered the storm better than others.

The good news is the apples have had plenty of sun over the summer which helps develop the sugar so what fruit there is is sweet and tasty and really good quality.

Source - http://www.freshplaza.com/