By RICK A. RICHARDS
Indiana Correspondent

EAU CLAIRE, Mich. — Fruit farmers, it seems, are always worried about something.

Is it too cold? Will there be hail? Will there be too much wind?
And most of the things they worry about they can’t control.
“You just have to learn to live with it,” said Herb Teichman, owner of Tree-Mendus Fruit Farm just outside of Eau Claire.

He ought to know. At 80, he’s the dean of Michiana fruit growers. Experience has taught him that every 10 or 15 years the weather conspires to take a crop.

“There’s not really anything you can do to minimize the loss.”
About 60 miles to the south near LaPorte, Ind., Brian Garwood, an owner of Garwood Orchards, says much the same thing. Even now, with a much warmer spring that normal, Garwood is on edge.
“I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop,” he said.

All farmers are sensitive to the weather, but fruit farmers especially so. Even as most people have been enjoying an unseasonably warm spring where temperatures have already surpassed 80 degrees, it has left fruit growers wary.

That’s because the warm weather has accelerated the growing season for fruit growers, causing trees to bud as much as two weeks early. And that can have a big impact on the value of the fruit crop.

In Michigan, there are more than 2,400 fruit farms with an annual harvest of more than $151 million, according to Michigan State University and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In Indiana, there are about 1,500 fruit farms that have an annual crop of more than $40 million, according to Purdue University and the USDA. And if April weather returns to a typical pattern, in which there are one or two frost or freeze events, the early buds could be killed.

At Teichman’s Tree-Mendus Fruit Farm, apricot trees are in full bloom and other trees, like honey crisp apples, are budding two weeks earlier than they normally would. And once the trees start budding, there is no stopping or slowing the process.

“It used to be,” said Teichman, “you could warm the air by burning brush or fuel oil. They also used to use a smudge pot and the smoke acted like a cloud and the cold air didn’t settle.”

Teichman said some fruit growers sprayed their trees with water, coating them in ice to protect them from frost. While that works, Teichman said, “Irrigating trees isn’t practical because the ice can break the tree.”

Teichman said the best protection he has found for Tree-Mendus Fruit Farm is its many different fruit varieties. Besides the seven main fruits of apples, cherries, peaches, pears, apricots, plums and nectarines, the farm has several varieties of each.

“Each variety has its own growing time,” said Teichman. “By having a longer season – some bud earlier than others – you have some built-in defenses.”

In other words, if a frost or freeze hits now, then only a portion of the farm’s fruit will be damaged. Trees where the buds are mature enough to withstand a frost, or trees that aren’t yet far enough along to be harmed, will continue to mature.

Teichman said that with over 250 varieties of apples on 40,000 trees spread over 450 acres, that kind of diversity is the best protection he has found against an early season freeze. The reason there are so many varieties of apples, said Teichman, is that in 1976, in honor of the nation’s bicentennial, he planted 200 varieties of apples as a way to celebrate the nation’s 200th birthday.

At Garwood Orchards, an eight-generation fruit and vegetable farm that’s been in the family since 1831, there is plenty of diversity among fruits, but not nearly as many individual varieties.
“For us, diversity doesn’t do that much to protect us,” said Garwood, 46, who owns the farm with his brother, Mike, and his cousin, Joe.

“What we’re having now is very typical. It’s warmer than normal, so sure we worry. We can expect one or two freeze events in this area up until May 15.”

Garwood pointed out that some of his apricot trees are in full bloom and many others are farther along in their bud stage than they would be in a normal year.

“If we got a freeze the damage would depend on the stage of the plant,” said Garwood, who added that a freeze wouldn’t necessarily destroy all the buds on an entire tree and it wouldn’t destroy the entire crop on the 400-acre farm.

Garwood explained that each bud will has five blooms – a king bloom and four side blooms. That means there is a potential for five apples from each bloom, but that’s too many for a Grade A crop.

The king bloom and side blooms mature at different times, so if the king bloom dies, some of the side blooms may survive. Even so, a side bloom produces a lower grade apple.

“What we want is one apple from every two or three clusters,” said Garwood. He explained that even if there isn’t a freeze, the trees are sprayed to kill off the side blooms once the king bloom has matured.

“The king bloom produces the best fruit, but it’s also the first that gets frozen out,” said Garwood.

“Right now in the tight cluster stage the tree is in, 26 degrees over three or four hours will cause 10 percent damage,” said Garwood.
And over the next 10 days as the blooms mature, a 28 degree event will cause damage and a 25 degree event could take the crop.

Although Garwood has two giant fans in the main orchard to circulate air on cold nights, it only offers protection to a small portion of the farm. He recalled the days when his father would burn fuel oil heaters in the orchard to combat cold weather, but not anymore.

“With the price of diesel fuel where it is, that’s just not feasible anymore,” said Garwood.

Both Teichman and Garwood have years of fruit growing experience. Both love what they do and both know they have absolutely no control over the biggest factor that impacts their bottom line.
And over the years, both have learned not to get too worked up over the weather forecast.

“It’s just a process we have to go through,” said Garwood. “We’re doing the best we can to produce the best product we can. It’s a challenge, that’s for sure.”