AUBURN — Apple trees in several towns weathered the weekend wind poorly, pushing over young trees and leaving a large portion of this year’s crop on the ground.

“We can’t give you a percentage right now, but of course it’s higher than we’d like it to be,” said Peter Ricker, whose family runs several area orchards including Wallingford’s in Auburn and Ricker Hill in Buckfield. “A significant portion of the crops was lost to the storm.”

Before Irene arrived, the year was shaping up to be exceptional, with lots of fruit.

“We were looking to have a heavy, heavy crop,” Ricker said.

As the storm approached, workers tried to pick whatever ripe fruit was on the trees, but there was little.

“This hit us about two weeks before apples were ready to pick,” he said. “There wasn’t much we could do.”

In most cases, the apples that were blown onto the ground will stay there. They cannot be sold as whole apples and they weren’t ripe enough to be used as juice.

At Wallingford’s, bunches of young trees with narrow trunks sat toppled like dominoes.

The scene was replicated among the Rickers’ other farms, located in Turner, Bridgeton, Harrison and Hebron.

“Our Hebron farm was hit especially hard,” Ricker said.

Last year looked to be a similarly good until a hailstorm hit.

“We lost probably a third to half our acreage to hail,” Ricker said.

He takes the loss in stride.

“It’s part of the game you play,” he said. “We have to take that into the consideration on the cost of our apples. You survive somehow.”