MODENA, N.Y. --- Steve Clarke of Prospect Hill Orchards in Modena says he expects his apple crop will be smaller this year because of the warm weather over the winter and spring.
"You have to pull out all the stops when you’re growing a quality crop of apples," Clarke said.
But he said the extremely hot temperatures would have been a problem if he didn’t have his irrigation system.
"They were not growing as quickly as we would like," Clarke added. "Things were drying out, so we started early, and we kind of got ahead of the curve."
The Department of Environmental Conservation has issued a statewide drought watch because average rainfall has been below normal for this time of year. Clarke says his two irrigation systems keep his crops watered.
"We're getting about a 130- or 140-[foot] radius out of the guns. The only problem with this system is the orchards are planted on a square and the guns to a circle, so you have to overwater or you generally miss a few trees on the corner," Clarke said.
He says to maintain his crop for the fall, he had to begin irrigation earlier than usual.
"We're starting to pull the ponds down; we probably have another month to go if it doesn't rain,” Clarke said. “The odd thing this year was that we started in June, and we never start irrigating in June."
Clarke has four ponds on the farm to water the crops, and the irrigation system pumps around 400 gallons per minute. He says his apples have been getting watered every three hours on hot days.
"The question is, will we have enough rain and snow this winter to refill the pond?” Clarke asked.
Clarke says he'll have apples ready for picking a week after Labor Day.