The morning of April 10 the temperature sank to 15.3 degrees (Fahrenheit). Because of the warm March temperatures - especially several nights when it was 60+ - the blossoms on the early varieties were well advanced. They could probably have survived 28, maybe even a bit lower for a short time. But no apple blossoms can survive 15.3. In one fell swoop, all those potential apples were done for. There may be some of the later varieties - maybe some Honeycrisp & SweeTango - we'll have to wait and see what the weather does as those blossoms appear.
On Monday night (April 16) I woke Farmer Bill at 11:00 to send him out to frost protect the strawberries. The temperatures were dipping below 32. The strawberries are not really blossoming yet - although the buds are starting to poke up in the center of the plants - but with a near total loss of the apple crop, Farmer Bill is not taking any chances. There are a couple of freezing nights coming up and Farmer Bill will go to bed early and get up about every hour to check the temperatures (I'll stay up until about midnight to give him a chance to get 1-2 hours continuous rest). If it gets to 32, he has to drive down to the river and start the pump that runs the sprinklers. The overhead sprinklers keep the blossoms wet. There's an old adage that "it's always coldest before the dawn." Turns out it's true. The coldest temperatures that our data logger records generally happen in the hour right before and just as the sun rises. So the overhead sprinklers have to run for as much as an hour after sunrise until the temperatures come up above freezing. Makes for a wet field... but saves the strawberry crop - and when we actually have blueberry blossoms, we may have to save the blueberry crop the same way.
Years ago Farmer Bill remembers someone asking his dad (the original Farmer Bill) about crop failures. The home farm outside of Welcome, Minnesota has never had a crop failure. To what, Grandpa Bill was asked, did he attribute the record of no crop failures? "We always got rain when we needed it," he replied. That was slightly simplified but mostly accurate - Grandpa Bill was a simple, honest man. Straight River Farm has had 4 weather-related disasters in the 8 years that it's existed. A 100-year flood in 2004, a frost on Mothers' Day 2010, a 500-year flood in September 2010,and now a frost in April 2012. It's hard, but you can't take it personally or you'd never be able to carry on. Farmer Bill will work hard to get the most out of his other crops.
On the up side - we'll be done selling apples early so I'll be able to start quilting early. I'm already thinking about the projects I want to complete...
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
Apple blossoms at pink and frost in the forecast
I spent a couple of hours in the apple orchard with Farmer Bill the other day. We were feeding the apple trees. We do this with one person driving the tractor pulling a small sprayer and the other walking behind with a spray wand aiming the spray at the base of the trees. The mix was a bunch of micronutrients - boron, calcium, and about a dozen more - intended to make the trees happy. It's a chance to take a good look at the orchard when you're on the tractor, because you go so slowly. Overall, we liked what we saw.
The buds on the early varieties are at pink. It was April 1 and my calendar of 'Orchard Events in Minnesota' for southern MN indicates that pink should be May 1-9. This makes it a full month ahead of schedule. The later varieties are still at tight cluster - or not even tight cluster for some. The pruning has been finished in the original part of the orchard, so the trees look really nice right now. The newer part of the orchard - mostly Minnieska trees that produce the SweeTango apples - still needs to be pruned and shaped.
What we didn't like is that the weather forecast is for freezing temperatures for the next several nights. How cold it gets and how long it stays that cold will both play parts in whether we get apples this year. Farmer Bill will go out and spray protective nutrients on the trees every day, but that's the most he can do, and we have only anecdotal evidence that it works. It helps if the wind blows - the hardest frost comes when the air is still - so I'll quit complaining about the wind that's been blowing like crazy for about a week. The strawberries are not even close to bloom yet, so we don't have to worry about them. Same for the raspberries and the blueberries.
The buds on the early varieties are at pink. It was April 1 and my calendar of 'Orchard Events in Minnesota' for southern MN indicates that pink should be May 1-9. This makes it a full month ahead of schedule. The later varieties are still at tight cluster - or not even tight cluster for some. The pruning has been finished in the original part of the orchard, so the trees look really nice right now. The newer part of the orchard - mostly Minnieska trees that produce the SweeTango apples - still needs to be pruned and shaped.
What we didn't like is that the weather forecast is for freezing temperatures for the next several nights. How cold it gets and how long it stays that cold will both play parts in whether we get apples this year. Farmer Bill will go out and spray protective nutrients on the trees every day, but that's the most he can do, and we have only anecdotal evidence that it works. It helps if the wind blows - the hardest frost comes when the air is still - so I'll quit complaining about the wind that's been blowing like crazy for about a week. The strawberries are not even close to bloom yet, so we don't have to worry about them. Same for the raspberries and the blueberries.
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