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Kentucky producers dodge bullet from freezing temps

By TIM THORNBERRY
Kentucky Correspondent

LEXINGTON, Ky. — It was just two short years ago that farmers across the eastern and southeastern region of the country faced devastating losses to an Easter freeze that sent temperatures plummeting after a warm beginning to spring; a similar type of weather pattern moved through the area last week, putting producers on the defensive.

Orchard owners in particular were working feverishly through nights of below freezing temperatures, doing all they could to keep fragile buds from succumbing to the frost. Keys Arnold, University of Kentucky (UK) College of Agriculture meteorologist, said while last week’s weather pattern brought below normal temperatures, there were some big differences between it and the one two years ago.

“It was similar weather-wise but it didn’t get quite as cold as in 2007. We saw temperatures then in the low to mid 20s and the lowest temperature I saw (last week) was 26 degrees,” he said. “Another thing that helped out is we aren’t as far along agriculturally now as we were in 2007.”

Arnold described the spring from two years ago as a biological explosion, as spring-like temperatures started early that year, prompting trees and plants to get an earlier-than-normal start on the growing season.

“Spring came early in 2007. We had much warmer temperatures, much earlier in the year,” he said.

More normal winter temperatures this year have kept an “explosion” from happening again but still producers across the area were are on guard for any drastic change in the weather. Evans Orchard in Georgetown was one of those that suffered major losses in 2007 – something the owners aren’t going to let happen again, if they can help it.

Jenny Evans said the orchard has fared well so far and they dodged a bullet last week as far as the temperatures go. “We don’t have any damage until the temperature reaches 28 degrees and the coldest it got was 29,” she said. “ We were really close, but it didn‘t get us.”

Evans also said they have an orchard heater that runs on propane, on hand in the event the weather gets too cold, but they have avoided using it even though her father, Kevan, spent a few sleepless nights keeping an eye on conditions.

“We pull the heater through the orchard and it creates kind of an air pocket and warms the area one or two degrees. We can run that if it gets to or below 28 degrees,” she said.

Evans noted that the heater cannot be used in windy conditions and that for the first night of the cold snap, the wind was too high, putting them solely at the mercy of Mother Nature.

“We were nervous and ready, but it turned out okay,” she said.
They had a right to be nervous. In 2007 the orchard lost everything with their fruit trees, including apple, peach and pear trees. “We had nothing,” said Evans. The 2007 freeze was the first such disaster the farm had experienced since opening the business in 1994 and she said the weather last week brought back memories of that event.

Producers across the state lost more than an estimated $45 million to that freeze, which impacted everything from the wheat crop to almost all of the fruit trees and the strawberry crop as well.
“It definitely crossed our minds. We were thinking ‘Not within two years.’” Evans noted even though apples and peaches are a little risky in Kentucky, two major cold weather events within a two-year period is unusual.

Arnold said while a blast of cold weather was expected last weekend, causing concern for the strawberry and wheat crops, the long-range forecast calls for normal temperatures and rainfall.
“Over the next month we are not expecting too much in the way of a deviation from normal, referring to temperatures and precipitation,” he said.

In fact, Arnold said that according to the Climate Prediction Center, the one- and three-month forecasts call for normal temps and moisture. “That should be a good thing. We could use a little normalcy.”

For the short term, however, he pointed out that over the next two weeks above-normal rainfall is expected. That might delay the planting of the corn crop, he said.

4/15/2009