Washington County Enterprise-Leader
Few Commercial Orchards Remain in Northwest Arkansas
LOWELL — Vanzant Fruit Farm started in 1949 and is one of the few remaining commercial apple orchards in Northwest Arkansas.
“There was a time we packed a lot of apples and shipped them to a lot of different places,” said owner Fred Vanzant, now 92 years old.
At the turn of the century, Washington and Benton counties were probably the largest apple producers in the world, Vanzant said.
Bryan Reed of Lincoln is from one of the families with apple orchards in the past in Washington County. Reed’s father and grandfather owned apple orchards in the Lincoln and Cane Hill areas and would sell their fruit to companies in Texas and Oklahoma.
Sales of apples continued to be good in the 1960s and 70s but declined after that.
Unfortunately, Vanzant said, apples have “gone the way of the wind.”
People just don’t consume apples as much as they once did and he contributes that to several reasons, one of the main ones being that both adults in a family are now working and people don’t cook as much as they used to.
What changed for apple orchards in Northwest Arkansas was the apple industry in the state of Washington.
“Washington State has the perfect climate,” Vanzant said. “They are able to grow them consistently year around.”
Washington-grown apples are prettier and have more color than apples grown in other places but Vanzant is quick to note, “There’s no apple that tastes like an Arkansas apple.”
An apple orchard takes a lot of work and time. Depending on the variety of apple tree, it takes five to seven years before an apple tree will bear fruit, Vanzant said.
The rows of trees have to be pruned by hand and thinned, either with chemicals or by hand.
Vanzant puts out traps for insects and this lets him know what insects have arrived and what type of spray to use to prevent insects from invading his orchard.
“We have to spray a dozen times and we have insects now we didn’t have before,” Vanzant said, adding, “There’s a new hardshell bug moving in from the east and last year, we didn’t know it existed.”
Vanzant said he uses every tool available to “raise a decent apple” for his customers.
“It’s not like setting something out in the spring and picking it in the fall,” Vanzant said.
Vanzant’s apples are handpicked and placed in 20-bushel barrels. He sells some to Harps stores but most are sold in his market located on Highway 264. His family opened the market when the apple began to decline.
Vanzant Fruit Farm grows a variety of apples and Vanzant said this is to give his customers lots of choices and also to make sure he has apples maturing at different times during the growing season. Varieties include Arkansas Black, Jonathan, Red Delicious, Jonagold (a cross between Jonathan and Golden Delicious), Fuji, Gala, and Grimes Golden.
The business usually has sold all of its apples by Christmas.
In addition to apples, the orchard has 20 acres of Concord grapes and 6,000 peach trees. demand