The World of Apples

Growing regions

Batu

Eight degrees from the equator, growers strip the leaves by hand and pick twice a year

How apples came

In 1974 the Purdue horticulturist Jules Janick described Java’s highlands, “which occupy practically 50% of Java’s land area”, where “temperatures drop to bracing levels and above 1300 m even frost is a hazard.” Apples were “highly prized” and imported in quantity, particularly from Australia; “the culture of apples has long been a fond wish and the Dutch imported many types during their long association with Indonesia.” Grafted trees came in with them, and one of the rootstocks escaped to become a local wild apple with small, bitter fruit, which Java then used as its own rootstock and exported to the Philippines “because of its suitability in the tropics”1.

Indonesian accounts put the first orchards in the 1930s. A researcher at the national citrus and subtropical fruit institute at Tlekung, Batu, says the Dutch “brought a lot of seedlings, but only three varieties suited this place: Manalagi, Princess Noble and Rome Beauty”2. IPB University’s extension service says the trees came around 1930, brought by the Dutch from Australia and planted at Nongkojajar in Pasuruan3; another account has twenty varieties planted at Tebo, Pujon, in 19344. Apples became a commercial crop in the 1960s and thrived for two decades in the highlands5, and a 1986 Queensland government review recorded that double cropping had been practised at Batu “since the 1940’s”6.

The orchards peaked around 1980, when Batu had more than 2,000 hectares of apples and 5.4 million trees. By 2021 that was about 1,000 hectares and 1.2 million trees, and villages that had been apple country, Punten, Sidomulyo and Gunungsari among them, had turned to flowers and ornamental plants7.

How they’re grown

Batu lies at 700 to 1,700 m on the slopes of Mount Panderman (2,010 m), Arjuno (3,339 m) and Welirang (3,156 m)4,8, and the city became independent of Malang regency in 20014. The apple-growing centre is at about 1,100 m, latitude 8° S6. Indonesian growing guides say apples do well at 700 to 1,200 m and best at 1,000 to 1,200 m, with 1,000 to 2,600 mm of rain a year over six or seven wet months and temperatures of 16 to 27 °C9,10; a land study in Bumiaji district found Manalagi grew best at 900 to 1,200 m and Anna at 1,350 to 1,500 m10.

An apple tree expects a winter. At Batu it gets none, so the growers make one. After the harvest they strip the leaves from the trees, by hand or with a defoliant spray, bend the branches to the horizontal and tie them, and cut the tips; the shock sends the tree into bud and bloom without waiting for cold. The stripping, perompesan, or in Javanese ngrempesi, is done about two weeks after picking, and the institute’s guide favours April and October, when the flowers escape heavy rain. From flowering, Anna takes about 100 days to harvest, Manalagi about 115 and Rome Beauty 120 to 140, longer in the wet season and higher up11. “In their native countries apples fruit only once a year,” Kompas reported from Bumiaji; “here they are engineered to fruit twice, so the trees age faster.” Spraying the leaves off instead of picking them cuts the cost of the job by up to 75%7.

The Queensland review explained why it works: at intermediate tropical altitudes of 500 to 2,000 m “temperatures are favourable for growth and maturation of temperate fruits at any time of the year”, and “successful culture is dependent on avoiding dormancy, by artificial defoliation, to induce a second growth cycle, resulting in two crops per year.” It knew of only two places in the world where this had been done “successfully for many years on a large commercial scale”: Batu, for apples, and Colonia Tovar in Venezuela, for peaches6.

Because each orchard starts its cycle when its own harvest ends, the farms fall out of step with one another, and in any month some orchard in Batu is being picked while its neighbour is stripped bare or in flower11,12. Picking is a tourist attraction: Bumiaji is known for wisata petik apel, pick-your-own orchards10, and Kusuma Agrowisata, the city’s agro-tourism estate, began in 1989 as an apple pick-your-own business13.

The warming of the highlands is undoing the system. The average temperature in the region has risen from 21 °C in 2000–2010 to 22.5 °C; the cool, dry season from May that growers relied on has become erratic, and a grower who used to get two harvests a year told the Straits Times his crop had failed for four years running. Official figures show Batu’s apple production fell from more than 142,000 tonnes in 2007 to 23,000 tonnes in 2020. One farmer’s 0.4 ha orchard, which once gave up to five tonnes a harvest, now gives 200 to 500 kg. Farmers are turning to oranges, carrots, tomatoes and flowers5. In Poncokusumo, 40 km to the south-east at the foot of Semeru, apples are down to a tenth of the former 600 ha7.

What’s picked

Three varieties carry the crop. Manalagi, “where else?”, is small, green-yellow, firm, sweet and aromatic, the most planted in Batu because it keeps for about a month; growers bag the fruit in paper to stop the sun blushing it red. Rome Beauty is green with a red flush, fresh and a little sour, the juice apple, with fruit up to 300 g and trees giving up to 40 kg. Anna, introduced from Israel, is the red one tourists pick, soft-fleshed and sweet-sour. Wangli (Lali Jiwo), green with black freckles and pear-like, Princess Noble, an Australian variety among the first the Dutch brought, and Granny Smith are now rarely planted2,3. The institute at Batu holds about 73 apple varieties in its collection3.

The harvest is spread through the year by the staggered stripping cycles11,12, with two crops from each orchard in a good year5,6,7. That is why every month of the atlas’s season chart has Batu in it.

On the table

The Indonesian word is apel, borrowed from Dutch appel; the same spelling, from a different Dutch sense of the word, means a parade or roll-call14. Batu’s apples are eaten fresh and sold across Java, including Jakarta; they are juiced, made into jam and dried into apple chips5, and the city’s shops sell keripik, selai, manisan, dodol and jelly made from them4.

Notes

  • Batu is one of two places in the world where a 1986 review found temperate fruit double-cropped commercially “for many years”: apples here, peaches at Colonia Tovar in Venezuela6.
  • Java’s apple rootstock is a bitter wild apple that escaped from Dutch grafted trees and was exported to the Philippines1.
  • Manalagi means “where else?”5.
  • Production fell from more than 142,000 tonnes in 2007 to 23,000 tonnes in 20205.
  • The 1980 orchards held 5.4 million trees; 2021’s held 1.2 million7.

Where the sources disagree

  • The first planting. “Around 1930, from Australia, at Nongkojajar”3 against “1934, twenty varieties at Tebo, Pujon”4; the institute’s own researcher says “the 1930s”2.
  • The story that apples spread in the 1960s to replace citrus killed by disease appears only in social-media snippets and is left out.
  • Recent production. A 2023 report cites the statistics office for 299,963 quintals (about 30,000 tonnes) in 2022, consistent with the Straits Times’ 23,000 tonnes for 20205, but it could not be retrieved.
  • The cycle lengths are taken from a tour operator’s page that cites the institute’s guide11; the institute’s own article on leaf stripping (16 November 2023) exists on its site but could not be retrieved.
  • Janick’s 1974 paper is behind a paywall; only its opening page was read1.
Batu
Where Batu is.

Sources

  1. The apple in Java, Jules Janick, HortScience 9(1), pp. 13–15; opening page via Semantic Scholar, 1974. Supports: the highlands as half of Java, frost above 1,300 m, the imports from Australia, the Dutch introductions, the escaped rootstock and its export to the Philippines.
  2. Mengenal 6 varian buah apel khas Malang, detikJatim, quoting Sutopo of the citrus and subtropical fruit institute at Tlekung, Batu, 5 April 2022. Supports: the Dutch introduction in the 1930s, the three varieties that suited, and the descriptions of Manalagi, Rome Beauty, Anna, Wangli, Granny Smith and Princess Noble.
  3. Mengenal 3 varietas apel utama di Indonesia, Digitani, IPB University, 1 November 2021. Supports: the 1930s, the Dutch bringing trees from Australia to Nongkojajar, Anna from Israel, the paper bagging, Rome Beauty up to 300 g, and the 73 varieties in the institute's collection.
  4. Sejarah buah apel hadir di Kota Batu, Jagadtani, 28 November 2023. Supports: the three mountains and their heights, the city's autonomy in 2001, the 1930 and 1934 accounts, and the processed products.
  5. Indonesia's apple-growing heartland feels the heat of global warming, Arlina Arshad, The Straits Times, 28 March 2023. Supports: commercial growing from the 1960s, the fall from 142,000 tonnes in 2007 to 23,000 in 2020, the rise from 21 to 22.5 °C, the two harvests, the failed crops, the farmers switching crops, Manalagi as 'where else', and the juice, jam and chips.
  6. Report on tropical, subtropical and temperate fruits for the Hanoi region of Vietnam, K. R. Chapman, Queensland Department of Primary Industries, 1986. Supports: defoliation to avoid dormancy and get two crops, Batu and Colonia Tovar as the two places, Batu at 8° S and 1,100 m, and double cropping since the 1940s.
  7. Berpaling dari kebun apel Malang, Kompas, 30 September 2021. Supports: twice-a-year fruiting and faster ageing, the spray that saves 75% of the stripping cost, the 1980 and 2021 areas and tree counts, the villages turned to flowers, and Poncokusumo down to a tenth.
  8. Kota Batu, Wikipedia bahasa Indonesia, citing the statistics office's Kota Batu Dalam Angka. Supports: the city's 700 to 1,700 m.
  9. Cara budidaya tanaman apel, Dinas Pertanian dan Pangan Kabupaten Badung, 14 December 2017. Supports: 700–1,200 m and the 1,000–1,200 m optimum, the rainfall and wet months, and leaf-stripping as practice.
  10. Evaluasi kesesuaian lahan apel varietas Rome Beauty, Manalagi dan Anna dengan ALES di Kecamatan Bumiaji, Kota Batu, Rohana Humulyani, thesis, Universitas Brawijaya. Supports: Bumiaji's pick-your-own tourism, the three main varieties, 16–27 °C, Manalagi at 900–1,200 m and Anna at 1,350–1,500 m.
  11. Musim panen apel Batu bulan apa? Siklus dua kali setahun, Cakra Birawa Tour, citing the institute's cultivation guide and the Badung agriculture office. Supports: the branch bending and leaf stripping, the timing two weeks after harvest, April and October, the days from bloom by variety, and the staggered cycles.
  12. Hari-hari panen apel, Teguh Sudarisman, travel essay. Supports: ngrempesi by hand, Manalagi four months and Rome Beauty six from stripping to harvest, and neighbouring orchards at different stages.
  13. Karakteristik Kusuma Agrowisata, Chapter IV of a Universitas Brawijaya thesis. Supports: Kusuma Agrowisata begun in 1989 as an apple pick-your-own business at Jalan Abdul Gani Atas.
  14. apel, Wikikamus bahasa Indonesia. Supports: the borrowing from Dutch appel and the homograph meaning parade or roll-call.