Why your apples aren't full of chemicals – and what it actually takes to grow a perfect one
If apples regularly appear on the Environmental Working Group's dirty dozen list, shouldn't you be worried about the chemicals used to grow them?
Nick Schweitzer has a different answer than you might expect – and he's been growing apples in Michigan for his entire life, following four generations of his family on the same land.
Schweitzer farms on "the Ridge" north of Grand Rapids, Michigan, in a region that produces roughly 60% of Michigan's apple crop. He grows over 18 varieties, manages one of the most challenging fruit-growing climates in the country, and documents it all on social media with photography that makes the work look beautiful – even when it isn't. He joined the Food Bullying Podcast to explain what it actually takes to grow the apple in your grocery cart, why fungicide programs exist, and why the pheromone technology his orchard uses is one of the most misunderstood – and most environmentally forward – tools in modern agriculture.
Are apples really full of pesticides?
The dirty dozen list positions apples as one of the most chemically contaminated foods you can eat. Schweitzer's operation tells a more nuanced story – and the nuance matters for anyone advising patients on produce consumption.
Michigan apple growers face a challenge that their counterparts in Washington State don't: high summer humidity. Humidity breeds fungal disease. Washington growers manage insect pressure; Michigan growers manage insect pressure and fungal disease simultaneously. That one-two punch requires a preventive fungicide program that doesn't exist in drier growing regions, which is why blanket comparisons of "pesticide residues on apples" across all growing regions misrepresent what's actually happening at the farm level.
The key word is preventive. Schweitzer's main fungicide chemistries – CAPTAN and EBDC – must be applied before rain events to protect against apple scab, the primary fungal disease in the region. An infection that takes hold in spring on leaves will produce spores throughout the entire growing season, creating secondary infection in fruit all summer long. Managing it early isn't overuse of chemicals – it's the difference between a marketable crop and a lost one, and between a farm that survives and one that doesn't.
The economics reinforce the point. A mid-sized grower in Michigan spends at least six figures annually in input costs to produce a good crop. Fungicide programs run roughly $60 to $70 per acre for spring coverage. Every application is a calculated decision based on weather forecasting, wetting hours, temperature, and infection period thresholds. Spray events happen when conditions warrant them – not on a fixed calendar regardless of need. Using more than necessary doesn't just harm the environment; it drains the farm's operating budget. Growers have every incentive to use the minimum required.
Pheromones: the pest management tool that replaces insecticides
Here's the innovation in apple farming that almost never reaches consumers – and that represents exactly the kind of environmental progress the agriculture industry rarely gets credit for.
Schweitzer uses pheromone dispensers throughout his orchard to manage codling moth and oriental fruit moth, the two primary insect pressures in Michigan apple production. The pheromones saturate the orchard environment with signals that confuse male insects, preventing them from locating females. Insects that can't find each other can't mate. Insects that can't mate don't produce eggs. Eggs that don't get laid don't hatch into larvae that damage fruit.
The environmental benefit is direct and measurable: dramatically fewer insecticide applications across the season. Rather than spraying broadly on a calendar schedule, Schweitzer uses integrated pest management to track insect life cycles and apply targeted insecticide only at egg hatch – the single window when the pest is most vulnerable and the application is most effective. Pheromone confusion reduces the population pressure; IPM timing reduces application frequency. The result is less chemistry in the environment, less chemistry on the fruit, and a lower cost of production.
This is not fringe technology. It's science-based, university-supported, and increasingly standard in responsible apple production. It just doesn't surface in food fear content about pesticide residues on fruit.
Organic vs. conventional apples – an honest comparison
Schweitzer grows conventional apples and is candid about where he stands on the organic debate: on a macro nutritional level, university research consistently shows that organic and conventional apples are substantially equivalent. There are some differences in phytonutrient levels, but the overall nutritional profile doesn't meaningfully distinguish one from the other at the consumer level.
What does differ is the growing challenge – and the environmental reality of organic production is more complicated than the label implies. Organic apple production in a high-humidity environment like Michigan is genuinely more difficult than in a dry climate like Washington State. Organic growers primarily rely on copper-based fungicides and omni-listed pesticides to manage the same disease pressures. These inputs are approved for organic production, but they still involve chemical applications made under identical weather forecasting and infection risk calculations.
The concern Schweitzer raises about retail decisions is worth understanding. At least one major grocery chain has moved to sourcing exclusively organic apples, eliminating conventionally grown fruit from its supply. If that trend expands, it creates a structural disadvantage for Midwest and Atlantic growers facing disease pressures that make organic production genuinely harder than in drier regions. Consumers making individual organic choices is one thing. Retailers removing conventional options entirely is a different problem – one that affects regional agricultural diversity and the economic viability of multi-generational farms like Schweitzer's.
How modern orchards are being designed for environmental sustainability
Modern apple orchards look nothing like the ones Schweitzer's grandfather planted. His grandfather planted trees 30 feet apart – around 60 trees per acre. Schweitzer now plants 1,200 to 2,000 trees per acre in what the industry calls a 2D system: trees trained into a narrow flat canopy two to three feet wide, with no large limbs jutting into the row.
The environmental logic behind this intensification is counterintuitive but clear. Higher density in a smaller footprint produces more fruit per acre with less land disturbance. Mechanical hedging – using a large sickle bar to maintain canopy width – reduces the need for hand labor while keeping trees in the shape required for efficient management. The 2D system is also being planted with robotic harvesting readiness in mind: camera-guided harvesting technology requires a canopy that a machine can navigate, and designing for it now reduces the future labor and fuel footprint of the operation.
Lake Michigan itself is a sustainability asset. The lake moderates temperature swings in spring, protecting blossoms from sudden hard freezes that would wipe out an entire season's crop. Frost fans pull warmer air from higher elevations down to tree level during critical periods. Working with the lake's natural moderating effect – rather than requiring intensive artificial climate control – is one of the reasons this region has sustained five generations of apple production.
Are apple varieties GMO?
With one narrow exception, no. The only genetically modified apples in commercial development are the Arctic Fuji and Arctic Golden, created by turning off the gene that produces the enzyme responsible for browning – a modification designed for processed salad applications to eliminate the need for citric acid. They are not widely available.
Every other apple variety – including Honeycrisp, Evercrisp, Cosmic Crisp, and hundreds of others – has been developed through traditional cross-pollination and multi-year selection. Apple breeding is slow, conventional plant science. The Evercrisp, Schweitzer's personal favorite eating apple, is a Honeycrisp-Fuji cross developed by the NAIA through exactly that process – selecting over years for the traits that make it hard, juicy, crisp, and reliably flavorful. No genetic modification. No controversy.
What a fifth-generation farmer wants you to know
Schweitzer's family has farmed the same Michigan land for five generations. His goal is a sixth. What he wants consumers to understand – and what he hopes to hand to his son – is that the care farmers take with their land is inseparable from their own futures. A farmer who depletes the soil, overuses inputs, or ignores environmental stewardship isn't just harming the ecosystem. He's undermining the operation he's trying to pass on.
The chemicals used in apple production exist because Michigan's climate creates disease and insect pressure that would otherwise destroy the crop. They're applied with precision, tracked by weather data, and used as sparingly as economics and agronomy allow. The pheromone technology, the integrated pest management timing, the 2D planting system designed for future mechanization, the lake-effect frost management – all of it reflects an industry that is actively working to grow more food with less environmental impact, on land that families intend to keep farming for another hundred years.
Connect with Nick Schweitzer: Find him on Instagram and TikTok at @that.apple.guy and on X at @thatappleguy616.
Want to bring the real story of fruit production, integrated pest management, and sustainable agriculture to your next event? Michele Payn speaks to agricultural organizations, agribusinesses, and dietitian associations on food bullying, the dirty dozen myth, and the science behind modern farming. Book Michele to speak →