In this study we assessed to what extent management of apple-growing within a well defined farming system affects environmental impacts. A four-year data set of 12 fruit farms from eastern Switzerland was analyzed using the life cycle assessment (LCA) method to evaluate the variability of different environmental impacts. For the total of 445 annual data sets of apple orchards eight impact categories were assessed. A principal component analysis (PCA) was performed to group the eight impact categories according to their correlation. A three component solution turned out to be adequate. It indicated that the three impact categories energy use, aquatic ecotoxicity and aquatic eutrophication were influenced independently of each other to a high degree. These three key impacts can be managed by keeping the inputs of machinery, pesticides and fertilizers low. Production constraints were highly homogeneous within the sample. Because of this, we were able to define the management influence on environmental impacts as the ratio of the maximum and minimum observed. On a per hectare basis, the effect of management for energy use was factor 2, for aquatic ecotoxicity factor 4 and for aquatic eutrophication factor 1.1. In contrast, when measured per receipts, the management influence was greater than per hectare, indicated by a range of factor 6 for each of the three key impact categories. Further insight into the effect of management was attained by statistical risk assessment. A positive and significant correlation between mean value (M) and the coefficient of variance (CV) indicated that the expected risk could be reduced by a low level of variability. Such a M–CV correlation was found for the two key impact categories energy use and aquatic eutrophication if calculated per receipts. No M–CV correlation was found for aquatic ecotoxicity. It was on the other hand observed that farms with low aquatic ecotoxicity also practiced low energy use and low eutrophication on a per receipt basis. We conclude that the promotion of environmentally sound apple-growing is not only a question of choosing one or the other farming system (e.g. organic versus integrated farming) but that an understanding of the system specific management influence is crucial.