CIDER and apple juice producers in an area historically known as the ‘Orchard of North Yorkshire’ are hopeful that amounts of sunshine, warm conditions and the lack of strong winds in April could lead to a bumper apple harvest.

Growers said the persistent high pressure and 215.8 hours of sunshine recorded between April 1 and April 27 produced conditions in which bees have been more active and with few gusts to blow blossom from the trees, flowers have had longer to be pollinated.

Cameron Smith, of Orchards of Husthwaite, a village near Thirsk which has exported apples across Yorkshire and the North-East since the early 17th century, described this year’s blossoms as “fabulous”.

He said: “There are about 1,500 trees around the village and the blossoms are the best I have seen in ten years. I think it will be a good year.”

Mr Smith said whether the glorious April leads to a bumper harvest would partly be dependent on the pollinators and partly on the trees themselves as they produce large crops on alternate years.

Gardening expert and Royal Horticultural Society judge Martin Fish, of nearby Rainton, said his orchard had seen some of the best apple blossom for years, adding “if the bees do their job we should get a good crop”.

The National Trust, which cares for traditional apple orchards across North Yorkshire, including at Beningbrough Hall, near York and Nunnington Hall near Helmsley, said the mild winter and recent warm conditions had also meant the apple blossom appeared early.

Nick Fraser, head gardener at Nunnington Hall, said: “We’re into the sixth week of lockdown now and people are craving nature. Perhaps one of the reasons why this year’s blossom seems so spectacular is that we’re all paying closer attention to it, we’re taking time to properly stop and look and reflect.”

However, some artisan drink producers said the fine April could eventually prove problematic for them.

Left with 20,000 litres of last year’s drinks due to pubs being closed and events being cancelled during the Coronavirus lockdown, Mr Smith said if there are huge numbers of apples this year the enterprise could struggle to find space to store produce. He said: “This is a significant problem for the artisan cider industry.”