Tomorrow’s Blessing of the Blossoms ritual hosted by organizers of the Blossomtime Festival will hold considerably more meaning thanks to the current forecast conditions.
Fruit farmers and winemakers all get a little antsy when the meteorologists start talking about snow at the end of April and beginning of May in Michigan’s Great Southwest, but for some the damage was done a couple of months ago, and for others, the forecast isn’t so severe that they feel overly threatened.
I reached out to Michigan State University Extension Fruit Educator Mark Longstroth Friday when weather forecasters started talking about cold and snow again late this weekend and beyond. Longstroth says, “Well, I am only a little worried about the weekend snow. I have seen snow before during bloom and a storm like this with rain and snow, wind and clouds typically has temperatures close to freezing not the 28 F that would damage flowers during bloom.”
Reality for some growers across the region is that they’ve already paid a price. Longstroth points to the cold weather of January and it’s impact, noting, “The sweet cherries are just starting to bloom, and normally we would see the hills in Berrien County covered with pink peach blossoms which were killed by the Polar vortex event at the end of January when the temperatures got down to -17 to -18 across the region when the wind changed from the west to the Southwest and took the Lake Effect away.”
Longstroth and his colleague Thomas Todaro chronicled those January freezes in great detail in a Michigan State University Extension article in mid-February. You can read that article by clicking the link below:
https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/cold-events-produced-varied-temperatures-in-michigan-viticulture
Longstroth adds, “Michigan is a big state and it was warmer to the north of us and no other area suffered the damage we did,” adding, “So the January cold killed peach flower buds and also killed the buds and wood on European wine grapes so most wine grape growers will be bringing up new trunks.”
In vineyards across the region, Longstroth says, “Some growers had shoots that they mulched and were under the snow so they will have grapes,” and points out, “We also grow a lot of hybrid grapes and they vary widely in their tolerance to winter cold.”
There are many acres of vineyards that produce juice grapes in Southwest Michigan, and Mark tells us, “Juice grapes were also hurt but mainly by the freeze we had across Michigan on Martin Luther King Day, January 21st, when the winds came from the north so there was no Lake Effect in West Michigan.” That freeze is also described in the article from mid-February. Longstroth says, “That affected the low areas way from Lake Michigan and the second event killed the fruit on the high spots which were missed in the first freeze.”
The long-time Fruit Educator voices additional concern, recognizing the impact on all fruit in Southwest Michigan due to the forthcoming lack of peaches, inasmuch as “That is one of the reasons people come to the region — for our fresh peaches and blueberries.” He goes on to say, “It’s still too early to tell what all is affected,” adding, “It does not appear that apples and cherries were affected as they seem to be developing normally.”
Elsewhere in the spectrum apricots were in bloom last week and Mark says, “A lot of the varieties had no flowers indicating the flower buds were killed by the winter cold, and that surprised me as I think of apricots as being a very cold hardy fruit. I see the same thing in plums where some varieties have little bloom.” While impacted, Longstroth says, “These are all minor crops for our fruit growers, but peaches are the big impact,” noting, “Some of the trees were probably damaged. We will see as the season advances and the trees leaf out and start to grow and then show signs of stress.”
Back at the juice grape crop, Longstroth says they were also impacted and we’ll know a lot more about them by June, noting, “Right now the grape buds are swollen to the size of a small pea and could withstand temperatures down to 20 degrees with no damage.”
Blueberries are also a major crop across the region, and Longstroth says, “I expect some damage in blueberries, but again I will know more in a month. In 2014, we had significant damage but harvested a large crop. 2015 was a poor crop year perhaps due to two polar vortex events back to back damaging the canes of the bushes.” He adds, “This is the third Polar Vortex event in SW Michigan in the last 6 years 2014, 2016, and 2019. We had a similar event in 1994, my first year, and growers at that time had no memory of a similar event that they shared with me but growers are comparing 2019 to 1994. The growers are asking if this is the new normal. It has had a negative impact on the Peach industry because if you don’t have peaches the buyers go elsewhere and are slow to come back.”
For Longstroth and his fellow Fruit Educators and colleagues at the MSU Extension team, they have been focused on workshops for peach and grape growers on what happened and their options,” and notes, “The FSA has a Tree Assistance Program (TAP) which will cost-share the price to replace fruit crops killed or damaged by weather, however currently only grafted plants (fruit trees and grafted wine grapes) are eligible for this program and there are efforts to include plants on their own roots, juice grapes, and blueberries.” He concludes, “We will be doing more as the season progresses.”
Overall, as the growing community hits blossom time in stride, Mark notes, “We are about only a few days behind normal, but plants are not as advanced and less susceptible to freezes because they are not in bloom,” and perhaps that’s the best news with snow and cold in the forecast this weekend. Stay tuned.
