Later than usual frosts in Europe earlier this year have badly affected the continent's apple harvest. German farmers have been badly affected, and consumers will be too due to an inevitable rise in prices.
September and October are the months when apples are usually harvested but there is little spirit of thanksgiving in the air as the yield is unusually low: Europe is facing its worst apple harvest in a decade while Germany's expected yield of 606,275 tons will be its worst since reunification in 1990.
"We have a significantly smaller yield across Europe because of the high levels of frost in many countries," explained Jürgen Nüssle from the marketing company Obst, which is based in the apple-rich area around Lake Constance, known as the Bodensee in Germany, in the south of the country.
"Prices will rise as a result, but not by enough to compensate farmers for the damage done to the crop."
The later-than-usual frosts of April did serious damage to the many apple crops in the southern region of Baden-Württemberg, but the damage was nationwide. That said, anti-frost technologies did help limit the damage in some northern regions, such as in Lower Saxony and in the lower Elbe area around Hamburg, where apple cultivation is also very strong.
Nonetheless, those areas have also suffered — the Lower Saxony Statistical Office recently reported that apple yields in the area were down by one third on 2016 figures.
The last time Europe's apple harvest took such a heavy hit was in 2007, with eastern Europe suffering the most at that time.
The apple: Forbidden fruit, royal insignia, record label and tech logo
The importance of the apple goes back to Adam and Eve in paradise - and it's still a powerful symbol today. Here's a selection of apples in cultural history.
Image: Kimihiro Hoshino/AFP/Getty Images
A bite is a byte
The perhaps most popular apple of the 21st century is the Apple Inc. logo of an apple with a bite taken out of it, designed in 1977 by Rob Janoff. Apple co-founder Steve Jobs had the idea for the company name. He was, Jobs said, on one of his "fruitarian diets," and came up with the name on his way back from a visit to an apple farm.
Image: Reuters/M. Rehle
Adam & Eve
It all began in paradise: The "parents of all mankind" made a fatal mistake, from a Biblical point of view, by ignoring God's orders not to eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge. Eve picked an apple, took a bite, and made Adam take a bite, too.
Image: picture-alliance/akg-images
The golden apple
In Greek mythology, this particular apple led to a dispute among the goddesses and eventually to the Trojan War. Young Trojan prince Paris was called on to judge who was the most beautiful: Aphrodite, Athene or Hera. All three tried to bribe him, with Aphrodite offering the love of the world's most beautiful woman. Paris awarded her the golden apple.
Image: picture alliance/akg-images
What goes up...
Legend has it that British scientist and mathematician Isaac Newton was sitting under an apple tree when an apple fell on his head - which made him think about the powers of gravity that forced the apple down and not up or sideways. The event supposedly inspired a brilliant idea: the Law of Universal Gravitation.
Image: picture-alliance/Isadora/Leemage
Royal insignia
Emperors and kings have been depicted holding an orb topped by a cross for many hundreds of years; sometimes the royal insignia tops crowns. So where does the apple come in? Take a close look at the shape of the orb: In German, the orb of the world is called "Reichsapfel," which literally means "apple of the empire."
Image: picture-alliance/Bildagentur-online
An apple a day
In many cultures, the apple symbolizes eternal life, for instance in northern European and Greek mythology. Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree," Martin Luther allegedly said.
Image: picture-alliance/akg-images
Tell's apple shot
German playwright Friedrich Schiller wrote "Wilhelm Tell," a drama about the legendary Swiss national hero who rebelled against a bloodthirsty tyrant. The 19th-century play is critical of society and still very much up to date. Tell was forced to shoot an apple off his own son's head as a punishment for disobedience.
Image: Kulturstiftung Dessau-Wörlitz
Who's the fairest of them all?
Resentful of her stepdaughter's beauty, the evil queen poisoned an apple to kill the girl in the Grimm fairy tale Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. Snow White took a bite, and dropped, as if dead. Lying in a glass coffin, though, she coughed up the apple lodged in here throat just in time - and lived happily ever after.
Image: picture-alliance/chromorange/J. Menzel
At the core
In 1968, The Beatles founded their own record label, and named it Apple Records. The logo, a bright green Granny Smith apple, first showed up on the band's legendary "White Album" that same year. Apple Records sued Apple, the consumer electronics company, several times for trademark infringement.
