Apple Crops In Other Places

[Greyt.Chase]

The orchard owners i've talked to around my neck of the woods have had their entire crops wiped out this spring. It was so warm then got to freezing temperatures and killed off the blossoms.

Are other areas experiencing this as well?

[SOME IDIOT]

In NY the late frost killed off a lot of the flowers on my early budders, but my Macs seamed to handle it fine.

[womblesd]

buds survived in western Illinois

[sandra]

Having difficulty digesting the potentially devastating news from both Michigan and New York.

The economic implications - not only for growers, but for all those in attendant industries, such as storage, packing, transport, etc - will surely be felt all across the 'mitten state,' which continues to be mired in recession.

April's freeze has also wiped out Ontario's apple crop this year.

This is just terrible. . .

Does anyone know whether Minnesota and/or Wisconsin have fared better?

[dmtaylor]

There aren't many big orchards in eastern Wisconsin, and I am only a backyard orchardist so I can really only speak for myself, but I have a feeling that many orchards in southern and eastern Wisconsin have likely been spared from the effects of many of the cold snaps that have bit others. For example, even with all the hard freeze scares in the past couple of months, it has literally not gone below 28 F at my house since the first week of March, and while my Cortland and Foxwhelp apple trees (fairly early-to-midseason varieties) have not bloomed yet, they will indeed be doing so in the next week or two as they are showing a lot of unopened pink flowers, and there are no signs of freeze damage whatsoever on any of my trees or other garden fruits and veggies. My unleafed sweet cherry whip was planted first week of April, and it is doing splendidly with lots of leaves now in May. I'm not sure what might have happened if I'd planted it in February or March, but that 28 F thing indicates to me that it probably would have turned out just fine as well.

So it seems to me that with the very warm March and then the cooler April, the weather calendar has sort of evened out, and some of us will still be getting good fruit set this year here in Wisconsin.

Sorry to hear about others not so fortunate. I know some in Wisconsin have indeed been bit. But our state seems to have been right on the edge, so it might be sort of like 50/50 safe vs. lost crops, depending on geography and luck.

[JohnB]

I have heard of whole crops being wiped out too. But one orchard I know will have a bumper crop and have been told "you'll sell 100% of your crop this year" due to the lack of apples at other orchards.