Latest news with #apples
Yahoo
17 hours ago
- Climate
- Yahoo
Rain and heat challenge apple season throughout WNY
WILLIAMSON, N.Y. (WROC) — From blossom to harvest, apples are sensitive to every shift in the weather — and this season has thrown a little bit of everything at growers. Between heavy rainfall and high heat, farmers are closely watching how their fruit is responding. Still, one local farmer says the crop is off to a strong start – even if the weather has brought some challenges. 'The apples actually look great this year. But we've had a ton of extra rain. And now this recent heat, it's created some problems for us, but otherwise, the apples look fantastic,' said Jamie Sonneville, co-owner of Lakeville Orchards. That extra heat and rain may be good for growth, but they also open the door for pests, bacterial infections and scab – a disease that damages the skin of apples and makes them harder to sell. But those aren't the only threats growers are facing. 'Fire blight is something that can attack the tree. And within a year or two, it can kill the entire tree. And the most difficult thing about fire blight is, you can try and cut it out, but it doesn't necessarily remove the problem, and it spreads very easily. So with additional wetness and wind, the fire blight can move through the orchard really quickly and take out a huge portion of your crop,' Sonneville said. To stay ahead of these risks, growers are sticking to strict spray schedules – but more extreme weather means more frequent treatments, higher input costs, and a greater demand on equipment and labor. 'One of the things that conventional apple farmers do is we have to spray, we have a regular spray schedule to help mitigate all of these risks. And one of the biggest problems when you have additional heat and additional rain, is just the increase in the amount of applications you have to put on, which means a huge increase in your input costs. Additional laborers. You have to make sure your equipment is always working because you're spraying more than you typically would,' said Sonneville. Growers say they're keeping a close eye on the sky — because the biggest threats may still be ahead. For the next few months, farmers are hoping for calm skies and steady temperatures to carry them through. The crop is looking strong so far — now it's just a matter of making it to the finish line. 'You go through, you know, you start in April with your application. Come as you go through hand thinning, you go you pruned them, actually, even before you start spraying all the way through to cultivating that crop to get to be the most perfect piece of produce, and they get stripped off the trees with one hailstorm, you could also have a terrible windstorm that could knock over trees, knock over your trellis system, or rip apples off. And also those hail storms, even if the hail is not terrible, if it damages the leaves, that makes that particular tree more susceptible to pests and diseases. Just because the leaf has an entry point,' said Sonneville. With harvest season still weeks away, farmers say there's time for the crop to either bounce back or even take a hit — depending on what Mother Nature sends their way next. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
RNZ News
3 days ago
- General
- RNZ News
A juicy history of the fruit industry's evolution and politics
environment 11:30 am today Chris Smellie spent 50 years in the orcharding and horticulture business - but never thought to write a book about it until development came to his door. He grew apples in Huapai in north-west Auckland for twenty-four years, as well producing roses from a high-tech glasshouse and running a small vineyard. But in the 2000s he watched as row after row of trees were removed from orchards to make way for more houses. The industry migrated to different parts of the country - fruit producing areas we now know around Nelson, Hawke's Bay and Otago. It's prompted him to write a history of orcharding called Where Have All the Apples Gone? beautifully packed with lots of photos and ads from different decades - it's a juicy expose of the fruit industry's evolution and politics.
BBC News
23-06-2025
- Health
- BBC News
Is an apple a day really good for your health?
We're told an apple a day keeps the doctor away, but does this humble fruit really have an outsized positive effect on our health? The world loves apples. Every year, almost 100 million tonnes of apples are produced globally. These fruits, which comes in a wide range of colours and flavours, have long had a reputation for helping us stay healthy. The popular phrase "an apple a day keeps the doctor away" originates from a slightly wordier Welsh proverb written in 1866: "Eat an apple on going to bed and you'll keep the doctor from earning his bread." But is there any truth at the core of this longstanding maxim? And are apples especially healthy compared to other fruit? First, let's think about the nutrients that apples contain. For one thing, they are a rich source of phytochemicals, including flavanols. These compounds have been linked to numerous health benefits, such as maintaining a healthy weight and lowering your heart disease risk. Why apples are so healthy Apples also contain various polyphenols, including anthocyanins, which help give some apple peel its red colour and are associated with improved heart health. Another polyphenol you'll find in apples is phloridzin. It has been found to help control blood glucose. There's also lots of fibre in apples, largely pectin, which reduces the amount of low-density lipoproteins (LDLs) – the unhealthy form of cholesterol – in our blood. Pectin also lowers the amount of sugar and fat we absorb from food, helping to stabilise our blood sugar levels. These nutrients in apples do seem to offer health benefits. A 2017 review of five studies reported that eating apples is associated with an 18% reduction in the risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Another review from 2022, which analysed 18 studies, found that eating more apples, or apple-derived foods such as apple juice, can reduce cholesterol, if you sustain the habit for more than one week. Having a healthy diet in general can lower your risk of cancer by up to 40%, largely thanks to bioactive compounds, phytochemicals, that are common in apples. Some studies have even linked apple consumption to having a lower risk of developing certain cancers. Regularly eating apples appears to be associated with various health benefits – and we know they're packed with healthy compounds. But are apples, specifically, any more effective than other plant-based foods at keeping the doctor away? "Apples don't have much vitamin C, and they have no iron or calcium, but they have so many other ingredients that promote health and do wonderful things for the body," says Janet Colson, professor of nutrition and food science at Middle Tennessee State University in the US. Apples contain compounds that are common to many fruits and vegetables, including those helpful polyphenols, says Flavia Guzzo, associate professor of plant biology at the University of Verona in Italy. Polyphenols are strong antioxidant molecules. They help to balance the ratio of antioxidants to free radicals in our bodies – free radicals are highly reactive, potentially cell-damaging oxygen molecules. By keeping free radicals in check, we reduce our risk of developing diseases including cancer and heart disease through long-term inflammation. Some researchers say apples have the "second highest level of antioxidant power among all fruits". Apples also contain the polyphenol phloridzin, which is much less common within the other fruits in your fruit bowl. Like pectin, phloridzin appears to lessen the amount of sugar we absorb into our blood from food. Apples are also a good source of phenolic compounds, which are another form of phytochemical. We get one study found that people living in the US get around one fifth of their total phenolic intake from apples. Research suggests that apple phenolic compounds are associated with a lower risk of heart disease, cancer, asthma, diabetes and obesity. But it isn't just the powerful polyphenols and antioxidant punch that has led some scientists to recommend apples over other fruit. In several papers, scientists recommend regular apple-eating because the fruits are simply so widely available. That means that eating them regularly is something that is relatively achievable for many people. It's clear that apples have the potential to improve our health. But it's quite a big claim to say that eating one every day will prevent us from having to go to the GP. Thankfully, one 2015 study took on this exact question. Researchers analysed a survey of nearly 9,000 people, which the participants stated what they ate during one 24-hour period, which they said was indicative of their typical daily diet. They found that apple-eaters were more likely than apple-avoiders to keep the doctor away, however, this result wasn't statistically significant when taking into account that apple-eaters are more likely to be more educated and were less likely to smoke. "The main finding, that there isn't much of an association between people who regularly consume an apple a day and the likelihood of visiting a physician, is because it's complex," says lead researcher Matthew Davis, adjunct associate professor of epidemiology at Dartmouth Geisel School of Medicine in New Hampshire, US. "People who consume apples, based on our analyses, are healthier in general." But they also found that daily apple-eaters were less likely to be reliant on prescription medication – and this was still a significant finding when adjusting for socioeconomic differences between participants who ate one apple per day and those who didn't. Therefore, the paper concludes, a more pertinent saying might be: "An apple a day keeps the pharmacist away." But Davis has issues with the apple-a-day phrase, and says there may be another reason why he and colleagues didn't find a connection between daily apple consumption and going to the doctor. "The underlying assumption is that you only visit the doctor when you're sick, but people visit the doctor for annual check-ups and other prevention-type things," he says. This is why Davis also analysed the data around the likelihood of using prescription medication, too. "This implies that apples reduce the likelihood of having a chronic illness," he says. But ultimately, he says, apples alone aren't enough to stop you having to visit the GP, and that the most impactful thing is having a healthy diet overall. "Which, really, is what the saying is getting at," he says. Colson agrees that the apple-a-day phrase alludes to regularly eating plant-based foods. Apples are a good example because they're so readily available, affordable, have a long shelf-life. "Before fridges, you could put apples in the cellar and they would last a long time, and they don't attract mould," she says. Other studies have found health benefits relating to daily apple-eating – but only when people consume more than one per day. In one study published in 2020, researchers split 40 participants (who all had mildly elevated cholesterol levels) into two groups. One of those groups ate two apples per day while the other had an apple drink with similar calories. The experiment lasted eight weeks and, apart from the apple products, the participants didn't make any other changes to their diets. The researchers found that the apple-eaters had a clinically significant lower level of cholesterol, at the end of the study. However, one weakness of this study it its small size; 40 participants is a relatively low sample size from which to draw any big conclusions. Another study found that eating three apples daily stimulated statistically significant weight loss and improved blood glucose levels (which wasn't statistically significant when followed up) in 40 overweight women. As for how best to eat apples to get the greatest benefit from them, Guzzo advises against removing the skin first. "We should eat the peel of apples, as this is where most of the apple's polyphenols can be found," she says. More like this:• Can chicken soup really fight off a cold?• Do spices really benefit our health?• Are fermented foods actually good for us? And ancient varieties are preferable to new varieties of apple, says Guzzo. In 2021, she and colleagues published a paper looking at the nutritional value of the Pom Prussian apple, an ancient apple from northern Italy, which she found was richer in polyphenols than more modern apple varieties. "When breeders select new varieties, they look to other traits, including size and taste and robustness of the trees," she says. "And when they select these traits, rather than polyphenol content, the variety becomes poorer [from a health point of view]." She says some polyphenols can produce a bitter taste, and that sweeter varieties probably contain a lower proportion of these compounds. As for colour, Guzzo says this doesn't matter so much. Both the polyphenols that cause apple skin to be red or green are both good for us. Ultimately, while eating an apple a day may not mean you visit the doctor less often, it could impact your overall health or your reliance on long-term medication. But, as is always the case, the bigger picture is complicated. Eating an apple a day is great, says Guzzo – but only if that is part of a diet rich in various other plant-based foods, since that is a key driver of good health. --
