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From coal mines to apple orchards

A group in Eastern Kentucky is turning reclaimed coal mines into apple orchards.

Ryan Wilson, who manages the operation, says harvest is underway for AppleAtcha Orchard’s second commercial crop of Honeycrisp apples. “It’s 60 acres, 125,000 trees planted in a high-density orchard,” he says. 

The trees are planted on a trellis, 21 inches apart, and once mature will yield about a bushel of apples each. The first AppleAtcha orchard location will likely yield about 125,000 bushels of apples.  Wilson says preparations are underway for a second orchard, which is 90 acres. The orchard grows Premier Honeycrisp, an early-ripening variety that is ready for harvest about 3 weeks earlier than traditional Honeycrisp.

He tells Brownfield there were challenges in making the land work for agricultural production. “It’s all overburden material from mining,” he says.  “So you’ve blasted the mountain, and then you put the area back and made flat land. The soil is not as nutrient-rich as your typical farmland.”

“But the apple trees that we planted, they’re thriving on what soil they have,” Wilson says.  “We don’t do anything special other than your typical fertilization.”

He says developing the orchard was about more than just growing apples. “The first thing we’re providing is making jobs for people,” he says.  “And then we are building a packing house and cold storage facility here in the industrial park. So that will create additional jobs and we’ll be able to pack and sell fruit to commercial grocers all over the country.”

Eastern Kentucky is located within a day’s drive of more than half of the U.S. population, which creates a unique opportunity for the orchard. 

AppleAtcha plans to invest nearly $100 million in the Appalachian area, creating around 1,000 acres of apple orchards located in Martin and Johnson County.

AUDIO: Ryan Wilson, AppleAtacha Orchards