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

‘You could walk up and down the rows and couldn’t find any apples, which should be at that stage the size of a pea,” said orchardist John Galbraith, who owns and runs Pine Crest Orchard in Bilpin, NSW. Photograph: Pine Crest Orchard

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.