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Freezing temperatures, and crop damage, varied widely

Apple blossom, seen on April 9, are in a vulnerable stage as a deep freeze approached.

By Bill Moss, Published: April 9, 2016

DANA — Danny McConnell's frost alarm went off Saturday night at 10:15, about when he expected it to. The next 10 hours would deliver either very bad news or not as bad and on Sunday afternoon McConnell was leaning toward the latter.

"We were very lucky the night before last when it didn't get as cold as they predicted," McConnell said as he stood a couple hundred yards from the vast white sheets that covered his strawberry crop. "We were at 42. Then last night we had part of the strawberries covered and some we used the sprinklers on and some we did both."

"It didn't actually drop down to freezing until about midnight and we were at 29 about 4," he said. It was good news  that the coldest temperatures were not as prolonged as feared. "We'll know more tomorrow when we start taking them off," he said.

Six miles of spunbonded fabric covers may have prevented a devastating crop loss. McConnell and his crew had covered most of the young crop 10 days earlier, on Friday, April 1, as the cold snap headed this way. Draping the crop required a lot of extra labor in the first place; high winds blowing the covers off required more. "We have to walk all up and down 'em every day," he said. "We had five-pound bags of gravel but that wasn't holding them down so we've gone to taking a shovel and burying 'em."

In addition to 20 acres of strawberries and 11 acres of asparagus, McConnell grows 40 acres of apples.

"The later varieties haven't bloomed yet," he said. Most vulnerable now are early varieties including Galas, Pink Ladies, Granny Smith, Golden Delicious, Red Delicious. Although he hadn't fully assessed apple damage, McConnell was optimistic about the fruit's chances. "This morning the air was so dry we didn't get much frost."

A few miles northeast of McConnell Farms, Kenny Barnwell said he had seen some patches that looked pretty badly damaged and others that looked like they escaped almost unscathed. Riding miles of roads through the apple country from Edneyville to Fruitland, Barnwell said he was amazed to see ridges of fluffy white blossoms, as if they were fine, and others already brown and doomed looking.

"Down the road it was 24 and those apples I'm pretty worried about," he said. "If that's what it was all the way through it's going to be hard. You're looking at a half mile down the road and a 5 or 6 degree difference in temperature. It's going to be a lot like it was in 2012. It's going to be very site specific. In certain areas it could be that severe."

Both McConnell and Barnwell said their peach crop, which like apples are about a week ahead in development, are past the blooming stage and protected by a cover called a shuck.

If the county's apple farmers survive this cold snap and make it past Mothers Day without another freeze, they have a chance at picking a good crop and selling it at a good price. Barnwell said he had heard from growers in Virginia about widespread freeze damage.

"I got an email from a lady Friday at the Virginia Cider Association asking about our crop because they were looking at a 90 percent crop loss before this weekend," he said. A grower near Winchester, Va., reported "it was 20 degrees in his orchard this morning," Barnwell said. "They're looking at a lot of damage in Pennsylvania."

"I really believe I've got places in my orchard that I'm going to have a crop," he said. "I'm equally confident that I've got some places that are going to be blank. I just hope there's more of the former and less of the latter."

A stretch of warm weather in February and March coaxed the trees into blossoming by early April and nearly all varieties except for the very latest such as Romes are in bud stage or full flower.

“Most everything is about a week early,” Marvin Owings Jr., director of the Henderson County Agriculture Extension Service, said Friday. “We had all that warm weather that really got things moving. The ones that are furthest along would be the Granny Smiths and Pink Ladies. Anything that’s in fruit set is very vulnerable to 28 degrees. I would say that we’ll be assessing potential damage all next week.”
The farm economy has a lot at risk because this year’s crop has the potential to be bountiful. A year ago, back-to-back hard freezes on two weekends in April killed about 40 percent of the crop.
“When you lose that fruit then it will come back and reset a heavier bloom typically the following year,” Owings said. Most varieties were looking very good up to this point as far as the fruit set for this season.”

Owings confirmed the farmers' assessment of their peach crop.
“I was checking peaches this week,” Owings said. “They’re at what’s called the shuck-off stage. That shuck will actually help insulate the fruit.”
Grapes, Owings said, were not far enough along to face a threat.
Apple farmers won’t be in the clear for several more weeks. The last day on average for the last hard freeze is April 26 and the last day for a frost is May 8.