PLEASANT SPRINGS, Wis. -- The summers' severe weather, tornadoes, drought and late frost are taking its toll on the state's apple crop.

"I haven't seen anything this bad," said apple orchard owner Richard Green. "This is bad. This is the worst we've ever seen."

Green owns a 12-acre apple orchard in the Town of Pleasant Springs.

He says until August he was expecting a great season.

But one August evening changed all that.

"Well, when the hail hits the apple it either punctures a hole or bruises the apple," said Green. "You can see they were hit. They start to rot after its been hit and opened up.'"

The apples on the ground are worthless.

Green says he lost about 80-percent of his harvest.

He estimates 10-percent of his apples will be sold. The other 10-percent will be made into apple juice.

But other apple growers have lost just as much for a different reason.

"There were spring frosts early when apple trees were flowering," said UW horticulture professor Teryl Roper. "The frost damaged the flowers and then with the drought the fruits weren't sizing very well."

While Green was prepared for the drought with an irrigated orchard, nothing could have prepared or protected him from what Mother Nature had in store.

"We were pretty optimistic because we had irrigated all the trees all summer long, 24 hours a day, so we had beautiful looking fruit," said Green. "We were pretty optimistic at that point, the next day we weren't."

Wisconsin is a small player in the apple growing industry nationally.

But consumers who enjoy buying their apples at local orchards could see a change in the number of apples available and the cost.