The year of the Cortland at the Bayfield Apple Festival

This year's Bayfield Apple Festival probably will go down in history books as the year of the Cortland. Apple orchards across the Bayfield peninsula report that the Cortland, an all-purpose apple developed in New York at the turn of the 20th century, is thriving when some other varieties underperformed after a dry summer.

"This is actually Cortland country," said Einar Olsen, owner of Bayfield Apple Co. "We grow more Cortlands than anything else around here."

"I suspect there are some trees on this orchard that are just as old as I am," said Olsen, 74.

Rain came in the nick of time for many orchards, giving the late-developing Cortlands the water they needed to produce a praiseworthy crop.

"It's been a remarkably good growing season, despite the really dry summer," said Claudia Ferraro, co-owner of Apple Hill Orchard. "We're kind of surprised at how great a growing season it's been."

Ferraro said her Cortland apple trees are producing the best-looking fruit, outpacing the Macintosh, Fireside and Connel Red trees by growing four times as many as any of those varieties.

"Cortlands are kind of the prime

Bayfield apple," Ferraro said. "They seem to grow really well here. All the orchards grow Cortlands. ... People, they always want Cortlands."

Jim Erickson, who owns Erickson Orchard & Country Store with his wife, Muriel, said his 1,500 Cortland trees are outshining his other 1,500 other trees, which include the Honeycrisp and Connel Red varieties

"They're really turning out beautiful this year," Erickson said of his Cortlands. "I'm really surprised by them and I'm really happy with them."

The Cortlands are also looking the best at Blue Vista Farm, where Eric Carlson and his wife, Ellen Kwiatkowski, grow nine varieties of apples.

"Last year was kind of an off-year," Carlson said. Cortlands "had a heavier fruit set this year."

A very dry summer also staved off apple scab, a fungus that can attack Cortland apples, Carlson said.

Jim Hauser, who works on Hauser's Superior View Farm, said a lack of rain this summer resulted in a poor crop of the apples that develop earliest, such as the Macintosh and Wealthy varieties.

"The early apples ran small, but the later apples, they caught up nicely," he said.

Cari Obst, executive director of the Bayfield Chamber of Commerce, said Cortlands are popular at the festival because they make good apple pies.

"It's unbelievable. I don't know how many pies walk out of this place," she said.