Lots of Washington State Apple growers are betting big on Cosmic Crisp apples. 10 Million dollars of advertising coming with estimated acreage close to 10 million acres after spring planting. Imagine how many of these apples will hit the stores in a few years.
Looks like Washington State plans to use their superior growing area, packing and storage ability to gain even more market share in a big way. At the moment they grow and sell about 2/3 of all apples for fresh consumption in the US. I expect they will have more acres of Cosmic Crisp apples than all Apple varieties in the entire state of Virginia in the ground in a few years.
Looks like this will be tightly controlled. From what I understand, during the first 10 years these trees are limited to Washington State commercial growers only who sign an agreement and pay a tree royalty and a production royalty.
I expect it will be a long time before this is available for home growers.
This is a lot bigger than the normal “club” apple. Lots of smart and well financed folks in Washington have invested a bundle of time and money in this project which could change commercial apple growing in a big way and impact consumers in a big way as a result.
Yeah, I planted one last spring that I bought from Raintree. Its now in a race with Crunch-A-Bunch for a first taste. At least with Cosmic Crisp I’ll be able to buy some fruit soon.
Its great that residents of Washington State can purchase these trees!
All the info I could find made it sound like Cosmic Crisp trees were only available to commercial growers in that state:
“A patent has been applied for under the name WA 38 by the WSU Office of Commercialization. Trees of WA 38 will be released to Washington State growers in Spring of 2017. Participation that year is restricted to growers who appear on Washington Apple Commission assessment records, have a federal EIN, and were selected in a random drawing conducted by WSU to decide who would first be able to plant WA 38”.
I’m not aware of any fruit that has ever received the amount of money and research like Cosmic Crisp including massive consumer panels to help determine what people like in apples.
If it’s as good or better than Honeycrisp, but easier to grow and store like the research indicates, it could turn the apple industry upside down. I would love to try one.
From the Cosmic Crisp website, “maintain their texture and flavor in storage for more than a year.” Thus the popularity with growers, along with it’s replant disease resistance.
True, but with my limited space: I’d rather grow fruits I cannot buy at a store. And considering how good store bought apples are here, I don’t expect a huge difference between home grown and purchased.
Cosmic crisp has issues that may make it challenging to grow well Cosmic conundrum: What's causing these spots? | Good Fruit Grower . Things may not go as they are planned and scion wood may be everywhere with so many acres out there. It’s not an apple i want to grow commercially until things like the spots are worked out. I planted four honeycrisp and learned Kansas is not an apple state even when we get a good crop.
@clarklinks Thank you for that link. Hope it works out for the growers. After almost 20 years and millions of dollars of research, lots of people are going to get hurt if it does not.
I believe the establishment cost for just one acre of high density apples in Washington is over $25K. Assuming 10 million of acres of Cosmic Crisp have been planted, I believe it puts 250 billion dollars of investment at risk if my math is right. EDIT (The math looks right but 250 Billion seems like a huge number!)
I think they have to many eggs in one basket and I don’t think it will end well. Sure hope I’m wrong. Worse case scenario it will be like red delicious and every orchard will be top working them over in 5 years.
I am pretty sure it will taste much much better than Red Delicious. Perhaps they will taste it and like it enough to start trying other varieties of apples that aren’t so pretty (like Russet apples?).
I am certainly being optimistic here but I for one would have no hesitation in buying apples that have cosmetic blemishes.