Mother Nature’s test

MONTROSE  — As the Grand Valley — the Zeus of Colorado peach production  — evaluates the recent fruit-crop loss from the week-and-a-half spurts of cold weather, growers to the south are a little more hopeful their crops survived, at least for now.

“Normally, this area is a week to 10 days behind (Grand) Junction, and Paonia is behind us,” said Kerry Mattics of Mattics Orchard southwest of Olathe. “This year, with the warm weather early, we were just a couple days behind Junction.”

For Mattics, those couple of days may have been enough to save the buds.

And for First Fruits Organic Farms in Paonia, those few days made all the difference.

“We are pleasantly surprised,” said Kris Kropp, who owns First Fruits with his brother Kevin. “We just found apricots, which we thought were the worst. If you find some, that means you still have a crop.”

Kropp has 300 acres of orchards, of which half are apples, known to be much hardier in holding up to frosty conditions. The other half consists of peaches, pears and sweet cherries, along with a few blocks of plums, nectarines and apricots.

“I would say we still have a decent crop,” Kropp said.

His news is uplifting. In the past week, several farmers in the Grand Valley, which produces about 80 percent of Colorado’s peaches, reported near-total losses.

Mattics wasn’t quite as pleased with what he found Thursday as he walked around his orchard, cutting into dozens of buds to see if they had frozen.

Mattics has a smaller peach crop — about eight acres broken up in several blocks. After cutting into about 50 buds, he found only a few good ones. A good bud has a bright green “pistol” in the middle, which eventually becomes the peach. The peach bud holds moisture and a freeze can break down the cell walls, killing the peach through dehydration.

“That’s not to say there is not a good peach out here, but it’s a good indicator,” he said.

Usually buds higher up and located in the middle of a block tend to survive better than those lower and on the ends of the rows. He found that to be true Thursday.

But even five good buds out of a hundred still gives him a crop, he said.

The acre and half block he checked can yield about 250 to 300 bushels (about 600 boxes of peaches). Last year, a late freeze killed many of the peaches, but he still was able to get about 300 boxes.

Unlike many farmers in the Grand Valley, Mattics does not rely solely on his fruit trees. He also grows a variety of vegetables that gives him an array of produce to sell locally at his stands starting in July.

As he checked out the rest of his orchard, it was hit or miss. Apple and pear buds produce in clusters, the middle or “king” bud usually developing first. Cutting into them, Mattics could tell some of the buds had died, but others were fine.

In a way, Mother Nature can help, as Mattics doesn’t want too much fruit to produce on one tree. It makes the tree work overtime and the quality of the fruit decreases. So, a little thinning is beneficial, and a freeze is nature’s method. However, it is not very reliable.

“Me and Mother Nature sometimes disagree on the appropriate thinning,” he said.

And when cold temperatures move in, it can be an all-night fight against Mother Nature.

Kropp said he had been up late the last five nights, checking temperatures and waiting to see if it drops to the critical point, which is around 26 to 28 degrees.

The last week was one of the worst Kropp had seen since he started growing more than 20 years ago. He said it got as low as 12 degrees in some parts of his orchard. But it was the wild temperature swings that caught growers off guard. He said temperatures were in the 50s and then, within in a short period, dropped below freezing.

Kropp, unlike Mattics, has large propane heaters and wind machines that can help warm the orchard when it gets to the critical point. Farmers find themselves waiting up all night, judging just the right time to start burning the expensive fuel. “You don’t want to burn up propane when you can help it,” Kropp said.

A good cloud cover helps, as it serves as a blanket that traps in the heat. With just wind machines, about two degrees is gained. By adding the heaters, no more than eight degrees can be gained, Kropp said.

“So, if you are 10 to 12 degrees under critical, you aren’t really doing any good but supporting the gas company,” Mattics said.

If farmers decide to use heaters during the first frost, they’ve made an investment and therefore a commitment to continue saving the buds, Kropp said.

And even as the sun shown Thursday, two more storms rolled in over the weekend. Temperatures were expected to drop into the 20s Saturday night and into this morning, so, they “aren’t out of the woods yet”

“You hate to get too excited right now because there is a long road ahead,” Kropp said. “We got hurt pretty bad last year, but that was a later freeze when the flowers had started. So, I think at this point, I’m way better off than last year, which I don’t think Palisade can say. It’s a rare thing when we do better than Palisade.”

Contact Kati O’Hare via e-mail at katio@montrosepress.com