What heat waves, frost, drought and torrential rain mean for our cherry orchards
Photo: Heather Leach, manager at Cherry Bay Orchards, says the farm has diversified geographically to withstand unpredictable weather events.
By Madeleine Hill Vedel
Sun contributor
Ninety degrees on April 1. Frost in May. Drought in June, and torrential rain storms of up to 4.75 inches within five hours in July. It has not been a typical year for northern Michigan cherry growers. But then, typical years are either a thing of the past, or the rarest of occurrence.
There is a reason our region is, and has been, carpeted in cherry orchards, apples and now grapes. We have the daylight of being close to the 45th parallel, but also the modifying lake effect which used to bring protective snow cover in the winter, limit frost events in the spring, keep summer temperatures mild, and extend ripening days into the fall months.
“There’s nobody who follows the weather as much as a farmer,” says Cheryl and Alan Kobernik of North Star Organics Farm in Frankfort. “For cherry growers, when it is 70-75F, or 80F degrees in March, you begin to cringe. It can’t do that without having an effect on the fruit in April/May/June. It will get cold again, and it will freeze.”
In speaking with a number of local cherry farmers, the consensus is that more than a few are wondering how much longer this region will be viable for cherry farming. Where once the peninsula was identified as ideal cherry growing land, the years and seasons have become more variable; years of poor crops and even crop failures more frequent.
Nikki Rothwell, Northwest Horticulture Research Center consultant comments, “We used to rely on Lake Michigan to moderate our temperatures – we had that whole moderating effect of the lake. That has really changed. Those really weird days of heat in April. Hail is an issue, unpredictable rain falls that cause splits and rot. A lot of people are putting in irrigation where we never needed it before.”
For the Koberniks, it was a year of near total crop failure, making it two years in a row. “One more year like this, and we’ll be dipping into our retirement. We can’t do that.”
For Gene Garthe of Garthe Farms in Northport, he brought in half the crop of what he did last year. And last year he harvested only 60% of what his trees can carry. “Normally we figure July as one of the driest months of the year – wrong this year. Drought in June and torrential rains in July. If you’re a sweet cherry grower, it’s a disaster. Just as the fruit starts to ripen it cracks and rots from the rain. What is that caused by? The climate is certainly changing from the normal, but what’s the new normal? There is none. Every year is different. This makes it a huge challenge for someone growing something that depends on certain conditions.”
On the bright side, the price per pound for cherries has finally hit 50 cents – a price point that it hasn’t been seen since the 70s. For many, this was the Holy Grail, the price point at which cherry farming is profitable. For those who did have a crop, even a small one, the year has been good to them.
Heather Leach, the new orchard manager at Cherry Bay Orchards in Suttons Bay, with a Master’s degree in Entomology from MSU, shared how their farm has diversified geographically. “The pockets closer to the lake pulled through for us. Still some we had to walk away from. They didn’t set enough fruit. Some produced well due to their location and position in the extreme weather events… From Bingham to north of Northport – different geography, proximity to the lakes, all helps regulate. Different geographic regions are an extra insurance policy for us.”
It was impossible to avoid the topic at hand: climate change. Whether it is milder winters which permit invasive pests such as the Spotted Wing Drosophila to survive and spread, warm spring temperature days which push the trees to precociously bud and bloom, unusually timed droughts and rain events… The only weather event that appears consistent is the potential killing frost or freezing wind at some point before June 1.
“The anomalies just keep increasing, every year. It’s not cumulative. Thirty-six individual years we’ve had this orchard. But these are real anomalies. Climate change is definitely affecting us. There’s a reason that cherries are in this part of the state, and it’s not working for us anymore. It’s unpredictable. The winters are too warm. We only plowed five times this year. It hasn’t hit below zero in years. Before it always did,” say the Koberniks.
Walking through the Garthe Orchards this spring, hunting morels between the rows of trees, Garthe paused to pluck a bud, open it up, and reveal the brown (dead) fruit inside. Somewhere between hopeful and fatalistic, he knew already that the season’s harvest would be affected, as it proved to be. This past week, cherry harvest finished, it is a time for reflection, for wondering what is truly happening in our orchards: what is a seasonal variation? What might be attributed to the effects of more CO2 in the atmosphere? What is the increased CO2 levels’ effect on the trees? Why such sporadic production across all crops this year?
“I don’t think it can be completely attributed to the cold temps we had this spring.” Garthe explains. “Climate change is causing a variation in the weather, up and down. The cold, atypical spring temperatures caused havoc in the bloom and pollination. What we’re seeing in the orchard is counter-intuitive. We’re seeing more crop in the valley than up in the ridges – caused by cold winds? It’s not what we normally associated with a decreased crop. Typically, cold air sits in the valley, and kills the blossoms. It’s another aspect of this year.”
Locals took note of this wetter-than-ever July. Wedding celebrations postponed from last year’s pandemic summer have tested the rain-readiness of our many event venues, the water-resistance of the rental tents. At times it felt like weekly torrential downpours. If climate scientists can’t and won’t predict specific weather patterns in our future, they do confirm that storms will be fiercer, weather events more varied and unusual. Leach, having lived the past few years in Pennsylvania where she worked at Pennsylvania State University, likened the weather this summer to what she experienced back east. The Atlantic coastline knows hurricane conditions and their fall-out: days of heavy, tactile humid heat crackling with electricity and powerful storms washing out roads, flooding basements.
On the bright side? “It was a great year for growing wood,” say the Koberniks. Garthe, Rothwell, and Leach confirm. The foliage is healthy and full. The trees look great; there’s good green tissue on them that can only help in the future. And, it’s possible the drought weather in June kept this year’s Spotted Wing Drosophila population down.
“We have horticultural practices to mitigate this risk, but the options are fewer and fewer as we are faced with these challenges,” Leach says. “It is interesting, and not what I expected moving back. I noticed changes [after six years] – it felt like the seasons were flipped, summer early and spring late. The trees aren’t meant to go in that order. With all that considered, we had a good year, but looking ahead to the future, and particularly for this industry, we’re having the heart-breaking conversation: Are we still a cherry growing region? In answer, yes, we do still feel confident. It’s still an excellent region to grow cherries, but we need to implement additional agricultural practices – diversifying our crops, planting more apples – if not cherries then these – to break even. We need to look at the industry as a whole, not to take cherries out of it, but to protect ourselves.”
Bad years happen. Garthe has lived through 2002, a year of wind freeze. 2012, a year of early spring heat and mid-May frost, and now 2021. Serious crop failures occur on average once per decade. There’ve been good years in recent memory—2019 in particular was a banner year.
This is the life of a farmer. Nothing is assured. And yet, you plant a crop where the conditions are promising. You do everything possible to give your plants, your trees, a chance to produce abundant and healthy fruit. The carrying capacity for tart cherries in our region is about 150 million pounds. This year’s harvest was closer to 42 million.
Rothwell and her colleagues at the Research Station are looking to put on a Fruit School this winter to cover some of these issues, looking at return bloom on the apples and cherries and to explore the unknown on climate variability and how it’s affecting, and will affect, fruit in the long run. In the meantime, she advises diversification, both in crops and geographically. Those who are able to, are doing so.
