5th generation grower, Hawkins Gebbers, is here to show us the intricate process behind harvesting organic honeycrisp apples for long-term storage.
Video Transcript:
“Hey it’s Hawkins, I got you out here in an organic Honeycrisp block and this week on Farm Friday I want to show you what we do to bring you fantastic honeycrisp apples, specifically organic, all year round. This is a bin of harvested long-term organic honeycrisp and we want to harvest these slightly under ripe which means there’s a lot of energy stores in the form of starch unconverted to sugar in this bin. I wouldn’t want to bring this to the store today but in eight months when I pull them out of storage, man, they’re going to eat like they were harvested full ripe yesterday. These leaves have been blown off with what’s called a leaf stripper because we want maximum sunlight to come to these apples for maximum red color and sugar development. When it’s time to come pick this block we don’t pick every apple. With the ripening difference down here you’ve got green apples, up here you’ve got red and almost ripe. So we’ll selectively pick this orchard in a couple days and every single apple has to be clipped. These apples with these stems, they would puncture the delicate skin of the honeycrisp in the bin. So every guy’s got a little set of scissors and they cut every stem. So everything about honey from pruning, picking, nutrition, extra light in the orchard with the foil and the way you pick, it is more expensive than most other apples. But we just think it’s totally worth it, right. They’re beautiful and man do they eat good. Check this out.”
