Cold Snap

Cold Snap

Cold Snap. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

The weather here in the Pacific Northwest is nothing if not chock full of surprises. Tim Smith with WSU Chelan Extension says ‘ol Mom Nature has thrown a few curve balls at tree fruit growers recently.

SMITH: Last November just before Thanksgiving the stat had a widespread cold snap and it was colder than it’s been at that time of year since 1985 and before then 1955 and 1930 so it’s among one of the rare instances when it gets that cold at that time of year.

He says that significant damage had been done in each of those previous years to tree fruit.

SMITH: So we were pretty certain that we would have at least some winter damage to the fruit trees in the state of Washington. And uncharacteristically the damage is likely to have occurred over a wide area rather than some small limited area. And then the reports that we’ve had come in have pretty much come to that.

With the exception of the pear crop most all other crops have received some damage.

SMITH: The pear damage seems to be fairly minimal but the cherry crop has been affected. Some small trees seem to have been damaged – at least damaged. The cherry damage seems to be to the trunks of small trees, significantly, the young plantings that are out there that aren’t in production yet.

Some trees are already being written off and Smith says many producers are going to wait and watch the trees to see if they heal and revive. More tomorrow.

That’s today’s Fruit Grower Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.

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