Despite the chill of winter, fruit crops are managing to withstand the cold temperatures with minimal impact this year.
MSU Extension viticulture specialist Mike Reinke tells us it’s been close to a good average winter overall for crops.
“Most of our grapes and peaches should be safe down to, we’re going to call it somewhere around minus five to minus ten degrees Fahrenheit before we would even start to see damage, and probably colder than that before we would see significant damage,” Reinke says.
Reinke says crops like peaches and grapes will be most affected by anything below the double digits below zero. So far, things are looking good for a good crop season, as long as there are no last-minute frosts in April and May.
“Some of these crops that have low crop yield one year, then they generally have really high crop the next year,” Reinke says. “The plants have rested, they’ve reserved their energy and they’re ready to go. We’re poised to have some big production in those. And then the others had rather average and decent crops last year, so we’re gonna have probably good crop on those again this year.”
As far as vegetable crops, MSU extension’s Ben Phillips says things are also looking good with the fairly stable low temperatures and snow cover.
