Business & Tech

Cold Snap Threatens to Hurt Local Apple Orchards

A freeze warning is in effect for early Friday morning. Temperatures are expected to dip again into the 20s to lower 30s in the predawn hours.

Unseasonably warm temperatures and a milder winter accelerated the blooming of fruit trees this season.

As the frost began creeping in earlier this week, so did the worries of local orchard owners that blossoming fruit trees would be susceptible to frost damage. 

“This is definitely out of the ordinary,” said Reed Soergel, owner of Soergel's Orchard in Franklin Park.

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Those beautiful — and early — spring blossoms will need warmth again overnight. The National Weather Service issued a freeze warning from 2 a.m. to 10 a.m. Friday. That means sub-freezing temperatures are imminent or highly likely, and those cold temps could kill or damage crops and other sensitive vegetation.

Temperatures are expected to dip into the 20s to lower 30s in the predawn hours.

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Carolyn McQuiston of Dawson’s Orchards, who sells apples from her Enon Valley farm at the , said the farm experienced a similar “hard freeze” Monday night. 

She said temperatures fell to around 25 degrees and damaged apples, pears and plums and left minimal damage to peaches, even with frost protection measures in place. Blooming a month early this year, she said, may extend the number of frost nights.

"Such that it would leave us with much less fruit or no fruit,” she said.

McQuiston explained that if the weather is both cold and windy, known as an advective freeze, it renders you “powerless.”

“When it is both cold and windy, no amount of work will counteract that,” she said. 

Nothing is more worrisome than a potential freeze. Some farmers have wind machines to combat the cold. McQuiston’s father installed two on the family farm in 1970. She said 300 heaters are also spread throughout the orchards, each holding about 4 gallons of home heating oil. She estimates 2 gallons of oil per heater, or about $2,500 in fuel, was burned Monday to protect crops. 

Last year, Soergel said, peaches were in full bloom on May 2, but this year it was last Sunday. He said having fruit develop a month earlier than usual has also moved all of his  up by a month.

“I usually have bees ordered for the last week of April and the first week of May," Soergel said. "They are in the peaches now and will move to the apples next week. It is difficult to get everything done when all your jobs are moved up a month, but that is part of farming.”

Soergel toured his orchard Wednesday and was pleased to find there was a sufficient number of apple buds to produce a nice crop after he had used fires and fans to protect trees from Monday's cold. 

“In a cluster of apples there are five flowers and you are hoping for the center one, known as the King bud, to be the survivor,” he explained. “If it does not survive you hope that one of the others will make it. I was super happy to find live buds on most of the varieties.”

Many farmers are expressing optimism for the season, though area orchards aren't out of the woods yet. The dangers of frost will linger until May, so at this point, it's hard to tell if the cold will affect the yield. But neither Soergel nor McQuiston believes they’re in danger of losing their entire crop.

McQuiston said it sounds like she has a lot to complain about, but she is in fact “very grateful.” She plans to have plenty of apples available when  at St. James opens for the season Saturday, April 12.

Soergel said a lot has yet to happen, but he believes his orchard is operating on a normal schedule.

"We are blessed to have fruit to work with and customers that want it,” he said. 


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