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Continued from pa: Catherine explained that normally, buds begin to break about April 20th. This year, they and others saw the buds break a full month ahead of normal, destroying buds on thousands of apple trees across the region. Says Catherine, “When I started seeing green buds in March Iknew we were in trouble.” They explained that while apple trees can take several days of warm weather they can’t take three weeks of it. A few days of warm weather will not ‘wake up’ the tress but a couple of weeks, plus warm nights, com- bined to make everything blossom well before it’s time. The warm spell of course did not last. Catherine adds, “The chances of not having a frost between March 20th and May 20th are zero. We knew right away that we were in trouble.” Trouble came in the form of not just an ordinary frost. The temperatures dipped and at one point hit -8 which was the death knell for the fruit trees. Irwin Smith com- ments, “When the buds swell they think it is spring and they lose their winter hardi- “My early apples - the old Heritage varieties were wiped out. Mac’s are next to bloom and | would say | lost 50 per cent of them.” ww tewin Smith ness. The buds were damaged to the point that they couldn’t become a frui Both Nature’s Bounty and Ocala Winery, sitting atop Oak Ridges, were just that little bit later than many others in the province, by maybe a week, so not all their fruit tress had blossomed. Irwin lost 50 per cent of his crop and Catherine is down 55 per cent. Irwin remarks, “My early apples, the old Heritage varieties were wiped out. Mac’s are next to bloom and I would say I lost 50 per cent of them. Varieties that do not bud as early, such as Spy’s, Honey- crisp’s and Red Delicious fared the best. The damage to the apple industry is staggering. Catherine says that normally Ontario produces about 12 million bushels of apples a year. With 89 per cent lost we are looking at only 1.2 million bushels for this year. Not only have the growers suffered a terrible blow but the reverberations will be felt in many different areas. Affected are the apple packers who will have to source apples from elsewhere. Storage facilities 16 FOCUS - JULY 2012 07. JULY FOCUS 64 pages.indd 16 Inwin Smith shows a branch containing a few Honeycrisp apples in their early ill development. jot been seen by Ontario farmers this year since upwards of 90 per cent of the apple crop has been destroyed by an early frost. Photos by J. Peter Hvidsten will be hurt. She adds, “No crop means no jobs. The apple industry is huge and employ’s thousands of people and the domino effect of what has happened will hurt a lot of people.” Farming is not for the faint hearted and there is sometimes no thyme or reason why things happen. Irwin has 25 pear trees, two of which are 25 years old and the rest are about six years old. The two older trees are starting to bear fruit while all the others are bare. His apricot trees came out in full and brilliant blossom and when the cold hit they dropped everything and are right back to the bark. Irwin adds, “It’s all over the map with my other fruit trees. I feel bad but there is nothing I can do about it. At least I have half of my crop left; many were completely wiped out.” If there is an upside in Irwin’s case it is that in his vineyard, the grapes look better at this stage than they have in years. The warm weather advanced the grapes and they are three weeks ahead of 12-06-25 11:15 AM