Farmers in Henderson County, North Carolina, knew that a cold front was coming, what they didn't know was how badly their crops would be affected. Dana McConnell grows 20 acres of strawberries, 11 acres of asparagus, and 40 acres of apples, when his frost alarm went off Saturday night at 10:15, he knew the next 10 hours would deliver either very bad news or not as bad and on Sunday 10 April afternoon McConnell was leaning toward the latter.
"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.
"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."
If the county's apple farmers survive this cold snap and make it past Mothers Day (May 8th) 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.”
