Sonoma County’s Gravenstein apple crop decreases as demand wanes

With his prized Gravenstein apples falling from the trees, Graton rancher Lee Walker started picking an undersized crop July 28 while reveling in the zesty taste of the famed red and green apples in homemade pies.

Walker, 89, has managed his family’s ranch for nearly seven decades — including a protracted decline in the Gravenstein industry dating back to the 1980s — and can’t avoid a sense of loss.

“The apple deal is almost done,” he said. “It’s a shame.”

While the coronavirus pandemic prompted cancellation of Sebastopol’s Apple Blossom Festival in April and its sister celebration next month, the Gravenstein Apple Fair, the fate of the area’s signature crop was sealed by a Chinese apple industry boom that began 40 years ago and transformed the Asian nation into the world’s leading apple producer.

On Walker’s watch, Sonoma County has lost 90% of its Gravenstein acreage while grape plantings have more than quadrupled.

Gravenstein orchards spread over nearly 7,000 acres in the west county hills in 1952, when Walker, then a 21-year-old Analy High School and Santa Rosa Junior College graduate, took over the ranch founded in 1910 by his grandfather.

Vineyards were scarce at the time, diminished by Prohibition, and apple growers that year produced nearly 17,000 tons of Gravensteins with a market value of $1.27 million — not far behind the $1.76 million value of the grape crop.

By 2018, Gravenstein orchards had shrunk to 684 acres and produced nearly 2,800 tons of apples, according to the latest county crop report. The crop was valued at $1.25 million, a fraction of the 1952 crop, which would have commanded around $12 million today in inflation-adjusted dollars.

While Gravensteins and grapes were both million-dollar crops in 2018, apples are no longer one of the central drivers of the county’s agricultural economy. Grapes now account for 70% of the county’s farm output, generating more than $777 million for local growers. Apples, on the other hand, ranked No. 14 on the list of the county’s 15 most valuable crops.

Compounding the woes for growers this year is a potentially disappointing crop.

The apples are “kinda light ... really bad on size,” Walker said. The reason is uncertain, he said, but noted his area had only 25 inches of rain, compared with an average of over 40 inches for the rain season, with meager spring precipitation.

Apples are dry-farmed in the county, entirely dependent on the weather for watering, he said.

“We’re having a difficult time getting the size we want,” Walker said.

Joe Dutton, who farms grapes and apples with his brother, Steve Dutton, started picking July 27 and gave the apples a qualified endorsement.

The Gravensteins are “looking good,” he said, adding: ”I think it’s going to be a nice crop — not a great big one, but a good one.“

The Duttons, who have been farming all their lives, operate 1,200 acres of grapes and 200 acres of certified organic apples.

“There’s not many of us left in apple farming,” Joe Dutton said. His parents started planting both crops near Graton in 1964, and the family’s holdings are now spread around the Russian River Valley.

The aging Manzana Products Co. in Graton is the county’s last remaining apple cannery, in business since 1922. It processes all varieties of apples — turning them into applesauce and apple juice — from organic growers in the county, all located in the greater Sebastopol area.

Walker Apples is the lone exception as the only nonorganic producer.

Gravensteins are special, said Alissa Trinei, the company’s marketing manager and a Sebastopol native. An heirloom variety with historic ties to the area, Gravensteins possess a “perfect balance between sweet and tart,” she said.

“There’s a lot of Gravenstein addicts out there,” Trinei said.

The Gravensteins coming in this month are “a bit undersized,” she said, but the total weight — expected to hit 1,000 tons — is promising. In July 2019, the cannery took in 397 tons of Gravensteins and handled 3,375 tons for the season.

But Gravensteins have never lost their appeal to the public, nor their affinity to the Russian River Valley.

Russian fur traders planted the first Gravenstein orchard at their Fort Ross outpost in the early 1800s, and they proved a fit for the climate and sandy loam soil around Sebastopol.

“Gravensteins won’t grow everywhere,” Walker said, but the mix of fog and sun around the town located on Gravenstein Highway (aka Highway 116) suits them fine. “The rest of the county is too warm or too cold.”

The area’s orchards were planted with seeds and saplings from Fort Ross, according to a history written by Jock Soper of Healdsburg and posted on the Dutton Ranch website.

Luther Burbank, the famed horticulturist, promoted Gravensteins from his nurseries near Santa Rosa, Soper wrote.

“It has often been said that if the Gravenstein could be had throughout the year, no other apple need be grown,” Burbank declared.

That’s not possible, because the Gravensteins, although they are the first apples to ripen here, are also thin-skinned and do not store or travel well. The orchard at Walker Apples is planted to 60% Gravensteins along with about 26 other varieties, including Golden Delicious, Jonathans, Baldwins and Granny Smith.

“At the beginning of World War II in 1940, Sebastopol had its high point of 13,875 acres of apples with 9,750 acres planted in Gravenstein,” Steve Dutton wrote in a column on the Sonoma County Farm Bureau website. “By 1950, the apple acreage was in decline with 10,874 planted acres, 7,465 of which were Gravensteins.”

While many people believe wine grapes put the squeeze on Sebastopol’s apples, the decline actually stems from China’s aggressive expansion that started 40 years ago.

China planted 300,000 acres of apples from 1980-85, boosting production to 3.6 million tons. The boom continued through 1997, pushing the country’s apple production past 17 million tons, the most in the world, according to a report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in 1999.

China remained the global leader in 2018-19, producing 34 million tons of apples, while the United States ranked third with 5.5 million tons.

As foreign apple juice flooded the market in the 1980s, the price per ton fell below a sustainable level and local farmers began selling off parts of their land and converting to wine grapes, Steve Dutton wrote.

His father, the late Warren Dutton, joined in the conversion to grapes but also retained “the best of our orchards in the ground and producing, always with a focus on Gravensteins,” he wrote.

Lee Walker, who has spent all but three years of his adult life on the family ranch, didn’t flinch under the economic pressure to grow grapes.

“Pure stubbornness and family traditions,” he said. “We choose to grow a product that feeds the people.”

Despite the woes of dry weather and undersized apples this year, Walker said the Gravensteins are upholding their reputation.

“We’ve had a couple of pies,” he said. “They have great flavor.”

You can reach Staff Writer Guy Kovner at 707-521-5457 or guy.kovner@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @guykovner.