Wacky weather causes spotty damage
Monday, April 23, 2012
by SUSAN MANN
Ontario tender fruit growers are working to mitigate frost damage to blossoms as sustained summer-like temperatures in March accelerated their growth leaving them susceptible to freezing nighttime temperatures.
Kathryn Carter, Ontario agriculture ministry tender fruit and grape specialist, says tender fruit growers with wind machines have been using them “quite a bit.” They’re trying to bring the warm air from above down and mix it to bring up the temperature and reduce damage in their orchards.
For apples, some growers are reporting frost damage. Brian Gilroy, chair of Ontario Apple Growers, says “I’ve got trees and it looks like somebody’s gone around with a little propane torch and singed all the buds. It’s that dramatic in places.”
The damage is really spotty, says Gilroy, who farms near Meaford. Some people may be wiped out while others may have a reasonable crop.
Gilroy says his poor buds are getting frost almost every morning. This is the worst he’s seen it in 26 years of farming and there’s still several more weeks of potentially freezing temperatures.
Gilroy says they’ll have to wait and see what effect this will have on crops but “it can’t be good.”
It’s going to be a weird year, he adds. This will be a year when fruit will have all sorts of shapes. “We’ll have apples that look like bananas or pumpkins.”
David Phillips, senior climatologist with Environment Canada, says during the mid-March heat wave in southern and central Ontario temperatures got up to the high 20s. “Instead of the first day of spring it was more like the first day of summer.”
There were 14 days in March with double-digit temperatures and about five days with highs in the 20s. “It was a protracted period of warmth.” It was also the warmest March on record “no question about it,” he adds. The length of time Environment Canada has been keeping records varies depending on the location. For example, records have been kept at Pearson Airport near Toronto since 1937.
Another part of the March weather story is the nighttime temperatures, which were often warmer than normal daytime highs for the month. Significantly colder temperatures returned in late March with freezing temperatures at night sometimes dipping down to minus 6 degrees Celsius, he says.
This month the weather has been more fickle with a few warm days followed several colder ones, Phillips says.
For tender fruit, the warm weather early in the growing season pushed blossom growth then temperatures dropped, freezing them. Carter says they can tell in some cases that there’s probably going to be a reduced crop. But in other crops only a small percentage of blossoms need to set for the crop and “we don’t know entirely for sure what’s going to happen.”
Phil Tregunno, chair of the Ontario Tender Fruit Producers Marketing Board, says on their farm near Queenston along the Niagara River they’ve had a few cold nights but so far “I think we’ve dodged most of the damage.” There is some damage on apricots and a touch on plums but their main crop, peaches, still looks very good.
The trees blossomed almost a month ahead of schedule. “We’re looking at starting production three or four weeks earlier than normal,” he says.
Carter says the cold weather definitely did have a potential impact on the crop. But it’s variable depending on the site even within a small area.
Frost damages the blossoms but it also affects pollination with bees possibly not being as active, she says. Some blossoms might look okay but when they get through to the actual fruit setting the fruit can be malformed or there could be damage to it.
From what she has seen so far, the tart cherry crop is going to be the one with the most impact. But they still don’t know with the other crops if there will be damage, she says.
For grapes, Carter says she isn’t aware of any damage yet. But as grapes start leafing out they’re more vulnerable to the cold. BF