Last week’s cold temperatures were of great concern to Michigan’s fruit producers. Audrey Sebolt, horticulture specialist with Michigan Farm Bureau, says different areas received varying amounts of damage.
“Overall counties from Grand Rapids to the lakeshore north, their flowering stage was such that they had some reports of damage, but nothing really catastrophic for any of the fruit crop,” she said. “Southwest Michigan, a little different in that they were further along.”
Michigan grows many varieties of fruit crops, and Sebolt said that was a benefit to mitigate frost impacts.
“Southwest Michigan typically is the first area to start blooming early, but for the most part, most of these crops have a lot of different varieties, so the damage was experienced in some early varieties,” she said. “Hopefully the growers will be okay because they have other varieties that did not experience damage.”
The fruit’s stage of development better positioned itself for survival, unlike the 2012 season.
“The difference between this year and 2012 is that this year we started accumulating heat in March—almost every day in March is a little bit above average,” said Sebolt. “Going into April, the result was about two to three weeks ahead of norm, and then we had these cold few days. 2012 was very different in that we started accumulating growing degree units almost from day one—January 1—that accumulated really quickly and resulting into a spring that was four to five weeks early.”
Sebolt said going forward, Michigan’s fruit growers need dry, calm weather for successful pollination.
