Apple blossoms make for fields of white
Photos by Tom Rivers
GAINES – An apple orchard on Route 98 in Gaines is full of apple blossoms in this photo taken at about noon today.
New York, the country’s second-leading apple state behind Washington, is out in bloom with white blossoms dotting the landscape in fruit country.
“Grab your cameras and take a drive this weekend,” Jim Allen, president of the New York Apple Association, said in a news release. “We’ve got more than 11 million trees across the state and they are putting on a gorgeous show right now.”
The state’s apple trees generally didn’t mind last winter’s cold temperatures and snow, Allen said. The apple trees actually need a certain number of “chilling hours” before they can develop next year’s buds, he said.
This year’s bloom is actually slightly ahead of the 2014 bloom, which was two weeks behind the perennial schedule. A late spring means less chance of crop-damaging frost such as New York saw statewide in 2012. Apple buds progress from dormant brown tips to green tips, to bright pink clusters as the buds start to open, to full white flowers.
