The 10 million acres number can’t be right. As there are 640 acres in a square mile, 10 million acres is almost 16,000 square miles, which is approximately one-third the size of the state of Washington. Washington state doesn’t have anywhere near 16,000 square miles of apple orchards, so the figure for the number of acres must be wrong.
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Good catch. Looked too high to me too.
According to Cosmic Crisp site they expected to have 5.8 million acres by 2018. Another site that I can’t find suggested the 10 million number. The state of Virginia grows about 15 thousand acres of apples total, so perhaps the number of units for just Cosmic Crisp acreage is thousands - not millions. Or perhaps they are talking about bushels or boxes shipped although the website says acres.
https://www.cosmiccrisp.com/news/2018/5/3/ddp919033prree5wn3bvhzqlbk5d8s
The typical density in Washington is around 2000 trees/acre so I’m amazed they could get that many trees produced and in the ground.
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I think anytime people put 100% of everything in something they are making a mistake. Pests etc will soon adapt to target that specific tree.
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I agree; somebody’s almost certainly put the wrong units in. As you say, it could be thousands of acres, not millions. It might also be the number of trees. Once a mistake like that gets started, it’s easy for it to go on getting perpetuated ad infinitum.
Look at this way: If you assume a yield of 15,000 pounds per acre on 10 million acres, that’s 150 billion pounds of Cosmic Crisp apples per year. If, say, two-thirds of that is sold domestically and one-third is exported, that’s 100 billion pounds per year among approximately 330 million people living in the US. That works out to 300 pounds of Cosmic Crisp apples per person per year.
How many people in the US are going to eat 300 pounds of Cosmic Crisp apples every year? How many apple eat that many apples at all to begin with? With are they going to do - stop eating Fuji, Honeycrisp, Golden Delicious, Gala, and everything else and just eat Cosmic Crisp? Is there some plan to use uneaten Cosmic Crisp apples for other purposes, such as animal feed?
The figure of 10 million acres of Cosmic Crisp can’t be right unless they are planting the trees in a lot more places than Washington and they figure the majority of them will be exported or used for some other purpose than fresh eating.
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There are some more numbers in this article.bb
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Can someone explain the interest in this apple? After tasting a well ripened cripps pink, I don’t know how an apple could taste too much better. Is the hype about this variety mostly only on the grower and industry side (regarding disease resistance, shelf life etc) or am I missing some other really neat things about this variety? I can certainly see that the industry is well invested in its’ success…
If I could find an apple that tastes like cripps pink (that balance of sweet and tart!) but does well in my area of WV, I would be a very very happy person
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I guess taste is very personal.
Cripps Pink is a very nice apple but doesn’t have the “crunch” that consumers have come to expect in the modern apple. Honeycrisp and Cosmic Crisp have been specially bred for that crunch and burst of juiciness which brings in a higher price at the grocery store.
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Like @ramv said taste is subjective.
However, taste and texture like Honey Crisp has proved to be fan favorite. It is the most popular apple in today’s market. Most popular does not mean the best, of course.
If Cosmic Crisp is a better Honey Crisp, people will buy them.
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I agree, I see people snatching up Honey Crisp at the local grocery stores. If the cosmic crisp tastes better, ships better, stores better, etc. I can really see the market potential for the fruit. it just seems to me like a huge bet is being placed on it by a lot of people who might depend on its success. Sometimes markets are hard to predict, I hope it pans out OK. I can’t wait to try cosmic crisp and see how it compares to some of my favorites
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I saw some at the grocery store a while back. Bought a couple those first two were good crisp, crunchy and juicy. A bit of thick skin but I figured that’s on the enterprise side. I could see some people put off but I wouldn’t say it’s bad. Went back for some more and they were on the side of mealy. Not full on but no crisp or crunch been on shelf to long. Would I buy again maybe if I knew they were fresh. Flavor wise I’d say refreshing nothing stood out for me like lemonade apple. Anyways that’s my take on it oh and I’ve got a tree from Raintree in the ground for a year now. Wide crotch angle don’t know about vigor so far about average. I saw a video and WSU says it can produce lots of blind wood if your not careful.
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Another annoying trait it inherited from its Enterprise parent, along with the thick skin.
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I’m a commercial grower as well as a Market grower. I tried a cosmic crisp 2 years ago and it was fantastic. Tried three or for this past season and I thought it was just a very good apple, Honeycrisp texture, high sugar high acid, good aromatics. One thing I noticed about the apples I tried was the appearance is kind of dull and I didn’t see the large bright lenticels that gives the fruit its name. Not pretty or bright like Honeycrisp or Nittany .which in my Orchard is gorgeous. I think it will be successful based on the marketing, the flavor, and the texture but I think the public will stick with Honeycrisp for a long time and it will be a slower ramp-up than expected for Washington’s new flagship apple with oversupply occurring in some early years.
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I haven’t treated it great. I planted it out pretty late, but it handled it well. Hasn’t put on a ton of growth yet.
I’m more used to M26, this was on a more vigorous rootstock, don’t remember just which off hand. May not like the heavy soil I put it in. I had two trees to plant, dug the holes that are 20 feet away from each other and the soil texture is very different. If I’d dug both the holes before planting either, I would have switched the locations, but by the time I was done, I wasn’t going to mess with it again.
If it isn’t happy, I may “move” it with some pruners, a knife and whatnot.
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That statement is pretty sweeping. Pink Lady is a very successful apple with consumers. Just because it isn’t the Beatles doesn’t mean it doesn’t have plenty of consuming fans. Pop music apples aren’t for every taste and most serious apple lovers don’t put Honey Crisp on a pedestal- I wouldn’t even want every apple I eat to have that same texture.
Consumers do want hard apples these days that don’t quickly become soft in storage, but I doubt all apples of the future with have to have the big cells of Honeycrisp to be marketable. Pink Lady has it’s own unique texture that I find very pleasing and I’m not alone.
My problem with the variety is that it doesn’t tend to get peak quality in our shorter season. I’m getting some Lady in Red this spring and now Adams has its own, supposedly early ripening variety.
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@alan
Lots of people agree with you about what a good apple is. This post in interesting to read about taste in apples Best tasting apples
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I don’t disagree at all. Pink lady is one of my favorite apples.
I also thought the Rubinette, KdS, Golden Russet, Cherry Cox etc etc were extraordinary last year.
None of the above changes the fact that Honey Crisp has a far more crunch than any of the aforementioned apples. Even if it is less flavorful.
That crunch is delightful.
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It is nice, but too often around here the brix doesn’t reach the necessary height to make the apple great or even very good. So you end of with a relatively small crop (after discarding the rotted fruit and unripe drops) of good fruit. Maybe Cosmic Crisp will be an improvement here. But who knows when they will release it throughout the country. Probably a couple years before the patent runs out.
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We’ve had some great Honeycrisp and Macouns at our local Supermarkets. The HC are big, crunchy and sweet, but for me all that sweetness gets old and the Macon’s flavor kicks it’s butt until later in the winter and it’s storage weaknesses show up. Hopefully this new Apple offers more than just sweetness with a crunch.
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Maybe, those are not locally grown.
With so much rain we have had (including this morning), my HC taste like crunchy cardboard, so watered down. I have several lbs of them in a fridge. No one in my family is willing to eat them. Can’t give them away as they will ruin a reputation of home grown apples!
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That doesn’t surprise me, given the number of issues with Honeycrisp.
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