Apple production in New England is particularly uneven this year. That’s according to Russell Steven Powell with the New England Apple Association. He offers a few reasons for the erratic season.

“Some winter damage from last year’s harsh cold, there was some spotty pollination in some orchards, and we had an unusually high occurrence of a bacterial infection known as fire blight this spring,” says Powell.

Those problems have not given any headaches to Cindy Bartlett, who manages an orchard store in Richmond, Mass. She says this harvest has been just fine compared to last year.

“I don’t think we have less,” Bartlett says. “I’m not sure if we have more, but I know we don’t have less. We had a fantastic crop this year.”

According to the USDA, the apple harvest across Massachusetts is expected to be down 8 percent from last year. Far bigger drops are predicted for growers in Connecticut and New Hampshire, with Maine seeing a nearly 50 percent surge in apples.

The department says it will release results from an updated harvest survey in early November.