KENT COUNTY, Mich. — "It's a hard thing to swallow, we work really hard all winter and everything to get everything going," said Aaron Roth, owner of Railside Orchards in Lowell.
Much like many local apple farmers, he's been taking measures to protect his crops from overnight frost using a frost fan. The fan works to bring warmer air from higher altitudes downwards and uses irrigation to spread warmer water across the crops to raise temperatures.
According to farmers, 28 degrees is the critical temperature for apples in their current stage. Temperatures below 28 degrees can result in buds being damaged, causing apples to be grown without seeds negatively impacting their texture, or creating markings on their skin making them unmarketable to consumers.
Long-term exposure to temperatures below 28 degrees can result in complete loss as well.
"My estimate right now is that we lost about 10-20% of our crop potential last night," said Tye Wittenbach, owner of LTI Ag in Kent City, an apple farm that specializes in research, testing, and developing strategies to help growers have more productive seasons.
Wittenbach says other farmers in the area have been monitoring conditions and have been becoming more conscious about the weather patterns impacting their crops.
"I think it's definitely more inconsistent than it was for the previous generation," said Wittenbach.
Like Roth and other farmers, Wittenbach will be getting a better understanding of how much damage they experienced in the coming days.
"Tomorrow, we'll start cutting buds and we'll be able to notice right away," said Wittenbach. "You can see if they're damaged. the easiest way to see is by dark, dark lesions on it. So if the internal parts of the bud are brown we're expecting it to either be significantly damaged or dead."
With his farm specializing in testing new strategies and research, Wittenbach said they've seen trial work show that applying fertilizer to trees in the days leading up to below-freezing temperatures can help buds withstand the cold.
There have also been encouraging results with new products designed to protect buds.
He said it's becoming more important for farmers to utilize technology and research to protect their crops from more inconsistent weather patterns.
"It's definitely more inconsistent than it was for the previous generation," said Wittenbach. "Early in the year, we're getting warmer temperatures, so what that does is it brings the trees out of dormancy earlier than we would have in the past, and when we move through those crops stages, we become more susceptible to frost."
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