NORTH HAVERHILL — Orchards around the Twin States have plentiful crops, following a tough season last year when many growers lost large portions of their apples, due to a late spring frost.

In North Haverhill, Windy Ridge Orchards lost 80% of its apple crop in 2023, owner Sheila Fabrizio said.

The orchard still offered pick your own apples, but Fabrizio said the farm sold smaller bags to stretch the crop and just managed to scrape by.

This year is a different story. One positive outcome from last year’s losses is that the trees had more energy to produce a plentiful apple crop this year.

Fabrizio described this year’s offering as a “bumper crop,” especially of varieties hit harder by last year’s frost such as McIntosh. Windy Ridge opened for pick-your-own apples on Aug. 21.

“We’ve actually had a busier opening weekend than we’ve ever had, so I think people were excited after not having a lot of apples to pick last year,” Fabrizio said.

Like Windy Ridge, orchards around the Upper Valley are laden with fruit as they open up for pick your own. Orchardists say they hope customers will come back after the off year and that they continue to see good weather.

At Plainfield’s Riverview Farm, owner Paul Franklin said his trees produced many fruit buds this spring and they are seeing an “above average amount of apples.”

“It’s nice to see people come back, especially people who keep coming over the years and we’ve built a relationship with,” Franklin said. “They’re happy to see that we have apples and we’re happy to see them come and pick them.”

While the season is off to a good start at Riverview, Franklin said he is always fearful that there will be less business following a year without apples. At the farm, traffic usually picks up after students go back to school, so he was still unsure how the season would go.

Fabrizio also said there’s still “a long ways to go,” this apple season, especially because the business is so weather dependent. Windy Ridge Orchard primarily relies on retail sales and the entire apple season lasts just eight weeks.

“There’s always something weather-related that you have to worry about,” Fabrizio said.

Steve Wood, owner of Poverty Lane Orchards in Lebanon, also said a good season can never be taken for granted in the orchard business, especially over the past several years. Wood said that although he is grateful for a heavy crop this season, he doesn’t “think anyone should have confidence in next year.”

Poverty Lane Orchards is still seeing small impacts from the 2023 frost. For example, there have been fewer insects and pests on the farm, which Wood thinks is likely because there were no fallen apples, which the pupae of these insects need for overwintering.

“Sure it makes management easier, but I want to control these populations. I don’t want them wiped off the face of the earth,” Wood said. “They all have a function. They’re just a pest to me.”

Thinking about the irony of this situation, Wood could not help but laugh at his new reality.

“I’m the lifelong enemy of the apple maggot fly, and now I’m scratching my head thinking about how to make sure it survives; a lot of my colleagues would laugh their heads off to hear me say that,” he said.

At Riverview Farm, Franklin also has noticed strange new trends. Because of the heavy apple production this season, he and many other farmers chemically thinned their trees. This causes them to drop some of the crop so the remaining fruit can thrive. This year, Franklin said he could not help but notice that the crop seemed to fall much more easily than usual.

“Is that any ripple effect from last year? We don’t know. A lot of us are suspecting it might be,” Franklin said.

Wood said these impacts are crucial to think about because the broader repercussions of unfamiliar weather patterns are unknown.

“I think this is for eternity; we are on an unfamiliar roller coaster with climate,” Wood said.

Clare Shanahan can be reached at clareishanahan@gmail.com.