YAKIMA, Wash. — The Washington State Tree Fruit Association has released its 2025 apple forecast, and the numbers suggest good news for growers.
The crop is estimated at 142 million standard forty-pound boxes of fresh apples. This on top of hurdles like a drought and tariffs.
In short, apple growth is strong. Jon DeVaney the president of the Washington State Tree Fruit Association said the harvest started Aug. 1 and all systems are a go.
“This year, even amid unusually warm and dry conditions, growing conditions remained strong overall and we are expecting another large harvest with high-quality fruit. That’s a testament to our growers’ expertise and the strength of Washington’s apple industry. It’s good for our economy, our communities and consumers everywhere.” said Derek Sandison, Director of the Washington State Department of Agriculture, via email release.
The WSTFA forecast includes interesting changes in the five most popular varietals. Gala is number one at 18% of production, followed by Honeycrisp at 15% (for the first time moving ahead of both Red Delicious and Granny Smith), Granny Smith at 14.7%, and Red Delicious at 12%.
DeVaney also said that the Cosmic Crisp, the sweet and tart apple that Washington State University, developed with money from WSTFA specifically to grow in Eastern Washington conditions and launched just five years ago, is now in the top five varietals in the forecast at 9.6%, up from just 1% in 2020 and 6% in 2023. That may signal that the consumer is looking for a balanced mix of tart and sweet apples, with a lean to more tart.
Fuji is forecast to be nearly 9.1% of the forecasted crop, Cripps Pink is projected at 6.4%, with Envy and Golden Delicious both at approximately 3.5%, and Ambrosia at 1%. All other varieties represent about 7%.
Devaney said long-running declines in apple picking labor mean many of the harvested apples may go unpicked.
Earlier in August President Donald Trump placed tariffs on top of India for, in his words, supporting the Russian war machine. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) pushed back on the Biden Administration pushed for a free trade agreement with India to get our product into their market.
“This is not where we need to be going with India. We need to be building alliances to markets around the globe.” Senator Cantwell said, “When we think what we were able to do with not just the apple market but the lentil market – these were huge opportunities and we were building on relationships that was going to get us a lot more export for our growers.”
“India had gone up to as much as our second largest import market,” DeVaney said, “years back there were trade disputes that dropped that almost to zero.”
DeVaney credits the Washington congressional delegation for being able to broker deals to get Apple sold in the Indian market.
“It takes a while to get market share back but there has been grown in that market, our apples are really well respected around the world and consumers appreciate them,” DeVaney said “but consumers are also price sensitive and so the nature of tariff regimes and tariff trade barriers matter a lot.”
With Washington being the Apple state, it’s not shocking that consumers seek out Washington products. The most recent numbers indicate the Indian market produced $19.5 million in Apple sales for the state in 2024.
“It’s hard to say with the impact will be [from the tariffs] apples are popular crop because they store so well.. our industry has been talking a lot to the US Trade Representatives office and congressional delegation about prioritizing new market access,” DeVaney said.
The conversation about Canada and Mexico though maintains as there is still uncertainty in relation to tariffs.
Washington’s fresh apple export is $132 million Canada and $199 million to Mexico. All in all, Canada and Mexico rank one and two when it comes to Apple trade.
Per WSTFA and multiple additional sources apples are vital to the state’s economy and are Washington’s leading agricultural commodity. Apples represented 16% ($2 billion) of the state’s total farm-gate agricultural value in 2022.
Nearly 30% percent of the harvest is exported.
“I think one thing folks need to understand about tree fruit is that growers plant trees for longer-term production and they hope to have them producing fruit for at least 20 years,” DeVaney said “so if there’s uncertainty in the market and access to the market, we can’t just dial back production the way you might on assembly line.”
The result of a trade war can end with short term over supply, and cut back the number of potential customers– it could ultimately oversupply a domestic market and it could have a downward pressure on pricing.
“The best way we can counter Russia and China is to build alliances with Europe, with Asia, with India… when we leave our self out of these markets they (India) go build alliances [without us] and that’s the one thing we don’t want to see,” Senator Cantwell said.
“When you have a perishable crop disruption to those systems, even if the long-term there are some benefits, in the short term it can cause a lot of financial hardship,” DeVaney said.
DeVaney said they are in talks to get products into Asian market and Vietnam which could expand demand.
Apple harvest typically begins in August and continues into November. As a result, this forecast is still subject to several months of variable weather, labor supply and market conditions that can affect the final harvest total.
