Appleton, N.Y. (WBEN) - With some days smashing record-high temperatures in Western New York and local meteorologists saying this may be the warmest winter on record, one fruit grower on Lake Ontario is a little concerned with how the weather will continue playing out.
"As fruit farmers, we are really nervous," says Jim Bittner, operator of Bittner-Singer Orchards on Lake Road in the hamlet of Appleton.
"It's not so much the fluctuations as much as the abnormally warm temperatures we have had. The trees are actually starting to think that it's spring, which is dangerous. Because if we get some warm weather, we get three or four days of 60 degrees, 65 degrees, my apricot trees will probably bloom and normally we can expect frost anytime till first week of May. And if they start to bloom, and then we get cold weather, we will lose this year's crop."
"When it's an issue is when the [plant] is more further advanced and really budded up and we might get a really cold snap, that'll freeze the buds off for flowering trees and fruit trees and so you won't get as much production out of that plant," notes Chris Zeisz, Manager of Russell's Tree and Shrub Farm.
Bittner says the apricots are more sensitive to premature blooming compared to the sweet cherries, with apples being the least susceptible to blooming of the three, but the anxiety is prevalent.
"We could take cold right now not without too much issue, but if these warm temperatures continue, then a cold snap would really mess things up and would really damage the trees, damage this year's flowers, even though they're not out yet."
Unfortunately, Bittner says farmers can't do too much to prevent an undesired outcome.
"Traditionally this area of the country, we don't have wind machines, we've never needed them. We don't have sprinkler systems to try to keep the trees from freezing when you're on a cold night. There's not a whole lot we can do, just to hope that we don't get the the warm weather that they're talking about.
We don't want to see spring till the end of April and not six weeks before that. And that's our problem. But there's really not a whole lot farmers can do. That's what farm is all about, Mother Nature has more control than we do."