Weather puts fall traditions at risk at local orchards - 13 WTHR Indianapolis

A fall season favorite is feeling the effects of the drought in central Indiana this year. The impact on orchards will change family plans and cause businesses to suffer.

There will be apples and pumpkins and all your other fall favorites, but not in the amount you've seen in years past. The spring freeze and hot drought aren't friendly to the farm and that means your family activities will be changed, too.

"It's going to be different. Nobody has experience with this kind of thing," said Tom Roney at Tuttle Orchards in Hancock County.

Roney walked along a row of mostly bare apple trees at the orchard Wednesday.

"If you look down the road, there are very few apples. That's the case for most of the Midwest," Roney said.

The main reason the trees are bare is the spring freeze.

"We had temperatures down to the mid-20s," Roney said.

Families and school groups will still be able to come here and get apples. You'll be able to buy them in the store, but for the first time ever, you won't be able to pick them yourself.

"There are so few apples out here and it just is wasteful to do the 'you pick' operation. Because people pick an apple and drop it or don't like it, so we can't afford to waste that many apples," Roney said.

Nearly 7,000 schoolchildren come to Tuttle's to learn about the farm each fall on field trips. They'll still get an apple, but those apples will most likely be brought in from the west. Of course, that means the price all of us will pay for apples this year will be up.

As for the pumpkin crop, it's suffering in the 100-degree heat. Farmers have had to irrigate the crop and hope the most popular fall farm symbol will pop up soon.

"We will have pumpkins, but not the normal quantity and not the size. There is no water and you gotta have it. They just won't be as big," Roney said.

As for picking pumpkins yourself, like many orchards across the state, Tuttle's will have to decide that in the fall.