"We couldn't do any worse than last year," said Norm Holtz, who grows everything from tomatoes and strawberries to potatoes and pumpkins on the family's 60-acre farm in Ida. "It was dry and hot and too warm to start out with. We can only go up from that."
A snowy winter and a colder than normal early spring have set up growers with favorable conditions and moist soil, said Dale Mohler, a senior meteorologist and commodities weather forecaster with AccuWeather.
"Believe it or not, the cold weather is a bit of a blessing as long as it doesn't continue for too much longer," said Mohler. "Everything is still dormant right now because it's been cold and that's normal. That's what we want right now, so that way if we get freezes in the next couple of weeks it's not going to be harmful to any of the fruit trees."
A year ago, an abnormally warm March kicked off the growing season weeks earlier than was typical. But many growers were struck with devastating losses, especially to fruit trees, when several frosts damaged and killed off millions of buds.
"Everything started dancing way ahead of when it should, so when we had a freeze come along in April, it damaged a lot of the things that wouldn't normally have been growing," said Mohler.
The losses were staggering for the state's second largest industry.
Growers lost up to 90 percent of the state's sweet cherry, tart cherry, apple, juice grape and peach crops.
The food and agriculture system accounts for $91.4 billion in direct and indirect economic activity, according to a MSU study released in April last year. The sector accounts for more than 923,000 jobs directly and indirectly. Fruit production generates about $758 million in economic activity annually in the state.
State climatologist Jeff Andresen, said at least $200 million in direct losses were incurred last year, but warned the losses are still being tallied. Michigan State University officials have estimated the combined direct and indirect losses last year to be more than $500 million.
"It was one of the most challenging years for the fruit industry as a whole for a long time," said Andresen, who teaches at the university. "We've arguably not had a year that bad for the fruit industry since 1945."
Drought conditions later in the summer harmed production of other crops such as soybeans and corn. Overall, the conditions were so terrible that Gov. Rick Snyder declared a disaster for farmers and opened up millions in low-interest loans and crop insurance to growers in 82 of the state's 83 counties.
Lingering effects
For many farmers, last year's losses were a tough blow.
"We lost everything. We had no income last year after we paid our bills," said Jan Upston, who owns Wasem Fruit Farm in Milan with her husband Bruce. She said they were able to absorb the losses without relying on a loan, but they need a good year this year to start being able to recoup the money they lost.
This year the family is already harvesting and selling pussywillows at the Ann Arbor farmers market, right on schedule, she said.
The family grows fruits, vegetables and flowers on its 110-acre farm in order to ensure they have something to sell each year, but last year, with the exception for a small crop of berries, nothing made it to market, she said. Upston's parents started the farm in 1942 and it has since grown to include a cider mill.
"You do the best you can. People keep coming down every week and asking me how things are doing and right now things look fine," said Upston. "But all of a sudden, you could have the trees bloom and then have a frost. With farmers, it's a gamble."
Upston said the family won't know whether there is any long-term damage until after the trees start to produce fruit.
"Not only did we have the frost, but we also had a drought last year," she said. "We still don't know how much damage was done to the trees and if they'll be as health as years before."
Katrina Schumacher, co-owner of the 188-acre Westview Orchards, a 200-year-old farm in Washington Township, said work has begun on pruning the trees to prepare for the fruit season. She said they had a decent strawberry and pumpkin crop last year, but they lost nearly all of their cherries, apples and peaches.
"We were already about three weeks ahead of a normal schedule last year, so that's why when those freeze nights came and there wasn't a cloud in the sky and there wasn't any breeze to make this temperature fluctuate a little bit, we knew we were done," said Schumacher. "We tried bales of straw and smoke and it did really nothing to help us with all of our tree fruit."
Schumacher said the outlook may be good for this year, but the losses of last year will stick with Michigan farmers.
"I think all of us celebrated, as we never did before, January 1st, because we wanted to be done with 2012 and all the challenges and heartache," she said. "It was lots of lessons last year. You learn how to tighten your belt and then tighten it some more."
Cautious optimism
Even with the favorable outlook, the farmers said there will be hurdles ahead, bringing back the seasonal workers and trying to regain footing in markets that slipped last year.
"The economic costs are going to take five to 12 years to make up," said Bob Tritten, district fruit educator from the Michigan State University extension. "It's going to take several years for the fruit trees to get back into their normal rhythms."
He said psychologically it's tough for farmers to move past the losses.
"Growers are really anxious to get back into the fruit growing business," he said.
Another challenge will be reviving markets that slipped for Michigan, said Ken Nye, horticulture and forestry expert with the Michigan Farm Bureau.
He cited the apples market, where Michigan usually ranks second or third in the country in production. Last year, 90 percent of product was lost.
"We need to make sure those buyers come back to Michigan. We don't want a one-year problem to become a multi-year concern for us," said Nye. "We've done the job in the past and 2012 was just a special situation that we don't expect to repeat any time soon."
