Slim pickings: what explains the unusual apple shortage in this Blue Mountains orchard?

Growers are reporting a difficult apple season, which is having a knock-on effect for local tourism

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At this time of year, Pine Crest Orchard in the Blue Mountains town of Bilpin would usually have about 1,000 visitors a day picking their own fruit from trees laden with apples.

But this season, the trees are mostly bare – and no one really knows why.

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Queen Elizabeth II’s official biographer named as historian Anna Keay