North Carolina is helping farmers recover from one of the worse apple crops to date, keeping early freezes, hail, and tropical storms from taking a bite out of Henderson County's apple industry.

Back in April 2021, two freezes devastated Henderson County, wiping out 70 percent of its apple crop.

Apple crop loss begins if the temperature dips below 28 degrees. Farmer Jeff Nex says in April, those two freezes brought the temperature down to the teens. 

"And it froze the apples on the tree, which kills the seeds, which totally devastated the crop," Nix said.

The third-generation farmer runs Flavor Full Farms in Henderson County. He said his farm lost about 85 percent of its apple crop, taking another beating after a hailstorm that summer. 

"The big thing was how are we going to make our bills. We had just invested a half to three-quarters of a million dollars in the operation of slicing and we had no apples to slice," Nix said.

At the time, Henderson County Cooperative Extension Director Dr. Terry Kelley said the issue was viewed as a local one by the state legislature until another major weather event hit Western North Carolina. 

"I was able to communicate with our state legislative delegation, and to help them understand the critical need. When Tropical Storm Fred came along, it appeared to me as an opportunity to maybe tag along with that to get our apple growers some help," Kelley said.

He applied for assistance, and the state put together relief funds for North Carolinian growers, packing $14 million away for Henderson County farmers like Nix to break even and make it to this year's harvest. 

"We've already got ours and yes it paid all of the bills," Nix said, "that's why I'm here and able to smile a little bit today in our harvesting, because let me tell you without this money, I might have been applying to your job today, or at Home Depot or somewhere."

So far, Flavor Full Farms has harvested around 70,000 bushels of apples with half a week of harvest to go.

Source - https://www.wyff4.com