Thread

California farmers are struggling to sell grapes as demand for wine drops

389 points · 987 comments · randycupertino

legitster · 1790630747 · focus · HN ↗
My parents live in a massive fruit growing region of the country. Just this year, 2 of the major packing firms in the county both declared bankruptcy. It's not just the trade war, but years of shrinking seasonal workers that fell off to a trickle as well.
The knock on effect is massive. The seasonal workers supported a large permanent workforce - and more importantly tax revenues in the county are collapsing.
But the really important thing to understand is that once the industry is gone, it's gone for a long time. The other markets competing with the US are already expanding their industries to fill the void. Once those trees are planted, they produce fruit for several decades to come.
1. TheJoeMan · 1790646146 · focus · HN ↗
  From a layman perspective, American fruit growers refused to change with the times. How long are they still trying to make the “Red Delicious” apple work? Another ex-major packer I know of made the peach fruit cups, which people have been catching on are just filled with corn syrup. But these have been long term purchasing trends, yet the growers seemed blindsided by the packers ceasing operations.
  1. jimbob45 · 1790646898 · focus · HN ↗
    I guess I’m out of the loop. What’s with the Red Delicious hate?
    randycupertino · 1790647346 · focus · HN ↗
    It's mealy, tastes pasty and bland with no flavor. Honeycrisp so much better tasting and texture! Red delicious were bred to have a dark red outside and look like a classic "apple" while sacrificing the apple flavor inside.
    mohaine · 1790647901 · focus · HN ↗
    The original Red Delicious wasn’t even bred, but was just a chance seedling found by chance.
    <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Delicious" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Delicious
    No idea if this is still true of what is currently sold under the name. All apple verities are clones so the they should be (mostly) the same but the verity is old enough to not have anyone protecting the name.
    bluGill · 1790648636 · focus · HN ↗
    Red Delicious is not a pure clone of the original. Random genetic mutations have happens over the years and those were cloned. Normal breeding has more genetic variation but clones get some
    lazide · 1790655199 · focus · HN ↗
    Normal Apple trees will have wildly different flavors on even individual branches.
    Specific varietals are from cloning specific branches widely, but at some point it often gets ‘lost’ due to natural imperfect cloning.
    throwaway7783 · 1790652857 · focus · HN ↗
    I am somehow in the "I like Red Delicious" camp. Perhaps because I was used to Kashmiri apples, that apparently share the cultivar roots of red delicious.

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