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Fruit weathers the cold

April 10, 2007 12:35 am

The present cold snap may have proven deadly to any early tomato plants home gardeners may have already set out, but the subfreezing temperatures seem to have done little damage to the area's other fruit crops.

In fact, temperatures as low as 22 degrees early yesterday may have actually cut labor costs for some peach-orchard owners.

"It looks like we've lost about half the peach blossoms," says Flint Hill grower Eddie Williams, "but we would have had to thin the fruit anyway."

What Williams means is that each small branch may have as many as a dozen blooms. Should all those blooms develop into peaches, the limbs could not stand the weight and would likely break off.

The fruit would also be small if every bloom were allowed to mature.

So, while the peaches are small, about eight of those 12 pieces of fruit would need to be removed, a labor-intensive job. With the freeze killing half the blooms, the culling will be much easier.

Still, the 53-year-old Williams, whose family has grown fruit in Rappahannock County for three generations, knows that he's not yet out of the woods.

"We still have the rest of April to worry about," says Williams. "Many times around the 15th or 20th of this month we get very cold."

In fact, Williams worries more about a later cold snap than he does about the one now in progress. Two or three weeks from now, temperatures similar to those we have experienced the past three nights could do serious damage to the apple crop, Williams' biggest money-producer.

"Right now, the apple buds are pretty tight and this hasn't affected them much at all," he says.

Louis Moore, who owns about an 80-acre peach and apple orchard on the Fodderstack Road between Flint Hill and Little Washington, isn't worried about this week's freeze, either.

"It nailed the cherries pretty good but I'll need a week or so to determine how much damage it did to the peaches," he said. "Right now, all I can say is that some of the fruit is dead and some is alive."

Strawberry plants at Belvedere Plantation in Spotsylvania County were luckier. They survived the cold, helped in part by polypropylene covers and Saturday morning's light snowfall.

"The snow acted like insulation," Belvedere President Donnie Fulks said yesterday while working in the field.

On other nights, Belvedere switched on its sprinklers to create an icy coating on the covers, which helped raise the temperature of the plants three or four degrees. Liquids give off heat as they turn into a solid.

"I think we'll have the first strawberries probably by the end of April, and by early May they should be rolling along pretty good," Fulks said.

Burnley Vineyards in Orange County got 3 inches of snow over the weekend, but used wind machines to protect the vines. The machines create an inversion, which pulls down warmer air.

"We've not had any damage yet," said Pat Reeder, a co-owner of the family-run business. "The grapes are still pretty tight in the buds."

Westmoreland County Agent Samuel Johnson said he was not aware of any damage to peach orchards in his area, where, like Rappahannock County, low temperatures lasted only a few hours. "They can stand some low temperatures as long as it doesn't last a long time," he said.