<div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>When you think of Bilpin, you think of apples.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>The historic town on the Bells Line of Road in the Blue Mountains is synonymous with apples, but this season there's a problem.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>There's not enough of them, and it's all a mystery.</span></div></div><div><div id="adspot-mobile-medium"></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>"I've not seen a season where there's been such a devastatingly poor set of apples," Bill Shields says.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><strong><span>LIVE UPDATES:</span></strong><span> </span><a href="https://www.9news.com.au/world/hurricane-melissa-landfall-jamaica-live-updates-most-powerful-storm-of-2025/39ea098e-c578-4dec-8d68-3a844c6d72e4" target="_blank"><strong><span>Hurricane Melissa tears through Jamaica</span></strong></a></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>And he would know.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Shields has run Shields Orchard since 1980, and it's been in his family since the 1950s.</span></div></div><div><div class="OUTBRAIN" data-reactroot="" data-src="//www.9news.com.au/national/bilpin-has-a-problem-and-nobody-seems-to-know-why/688866ac-dd45-4208-aa80-7a1daf2d3daf" data-widget-id="AR_5"></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>"We estimate we have between five and 10 per cent of what we usually have on our apple trees," he says.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>That's five to 10 per cent of the 40 tonnes of apples they would pick in a normal season.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>"It would be like me saying to you, I'm only going to pay you 10 per cent of your salary for this year," Shields says.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>And it's not just as Shields Orchard.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><strong><span>READ MORE:</span></strong><span> </span><a href="https://www.9news.com.au/national/year-12-history-exam-error-minister-vows-investigation-after-hundreds-students-taught-wrong-syllabus/77fb717b-1dab-42dd-8fd5-dc7edfb5cbd2" target="_blank"><strong><span>Minister to investigate after year 12s taught wrong subject for final exam</span></strong></a></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>At a recent growers meeting, six of the eight orchards in Bilpin said they, too, had problems with the area's best-known product.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>And nobody seems to know why.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>A few kilometres up the Bells Line of Road at Pine Crest Orchard, it's the same story.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>"We've hardly any apples on the trees, and we've got no rational explanation for that," says John Galbraith, who has also been in the game for decades.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>By this time of the year, clusters of apples should be visible just by walking past trees, but currently there are very few, and in some cases none.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><strong><span>READ MORE:</span></strong><span> </span><a href="https://www.9news.com.au/health/sydney-hospital-vandalism-police-investigation-underway-after-death-sutherland/e3d805cb-a779-42a6-9ec5-60aae4b44953" target="_blank"><strong><span>Investigation underway after death at hospital where alleged sabotage occurred</span></strong></a></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>It's bad news not just for the orchards, which rely on "pick your own" tourism for a large part of their income, but for tourism in the area on the whole.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>"There's a flow-on effect for perhaps the local cafes, coffee shops and bakeries, because of people not coming to the district," Galbraith says.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>The Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development says the issue is localised and that it's working with growers in the area to work out exactly what has gone wrong this season.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><a href="https://www.9news.com.au/national/how-to-follow-9news-digital/29855bb1-ad3d-4c38-bc25-3cb52af1216f" target="_blank"><strong><em><span>DOWNLOAD THE 9NEWS APP</span></em></strong></a><strong><em><span>: Stay across all the latest in breaking news, sport, politics and the weather via our news app and get notifications sent straight to your smartphone. 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