It goes without saying that farming of any sort involves a lot of risk.\u00a0 Those of us growers in the fruit industry incur a little more risk than normal.\u00a0 We have the same commodity and market risk as other growers, but I’d contend that we have a higher risk of weather related events.<\/p>\n
First, there’s drought\u00a0which can affect all farmers.\u00a0 2012 will long be remembered by those in the midwest for the record setting drought there.\u00a0 It drove grain prices sky high as the markets gradually realized that despite a record-setting acreage for corn, the yields would be mediocre at best.\u00a0 (It actually turned out to\u00a0be the 7th highest\u00a0total yield.)\u00a0 Many of our neighbors here in\u00a0the East\u00a0will forget that we also had a short drought here.\u00a0 It caused us a great deal of mortality in a newly planted field of strawberries, which will probably take us an extra year to recover.<\/p>\n
On the flip side of drought, is too much rain.\u00a0 You’ll rarely hear a\u00a0grain farmer complain about too much rain, but fruit growers fret over it.\u00a0 Rain brings conditions favorable for disease that can disfigure fruit or even kill a tree.\u00a0 We work hard to use varieties and methods that prevent disease, but the most effective tool is timely application of fungicides.\u00a0 Which means that fruit growers are constantly watching the weather to try to prevent disease before it starts to rain.<\/p>\n
Our most dreaded weather foe is undoubtedly hail.\u00a0 Two minutes of hail in a violent thunderstorm can completely destroy a crop.\u00a0 And not just one fruit type – but everything in every orchard.\u00a0 And since thunderstorms strike in the summertime, it means that all of the costs are already sunk and there is no way to retrieve them.\u00a0 If you’re already in debt, a hailstorm can knock you out of the game for good.<\/p>\n
Finally, there is the\u00a0spring freeze.\u00a0 All fruit trees go through a blooming phase, where they are especially vulnerable to cold weather.\u00a0 If we experience freezing temperatures for more than a few hours during bloom, we begin losing the crop.\u00a0 Chances are good you didn’t realize that after the big front brought us needed\u00a0rain last Friday, that the resulting northly winds on Saturday ushered in freezing conditions for much of Pennsylvania.\u00a0 I awoke this morning and checked my thermometer right away: 32.9.\u00a0 I later took a look at the climate conditions page for PA, and watched an animated map of Pennsylvania temperatures Saturday night.\u00a0 By 4:00 AM the freezing temperatures were nearing Adams County and by 6:00 AM they were in York County, but just as they neared us…\u00a0 the sun rose.<\/p>\n
Today, we were saved by the dawn.\u00a0 Hopefully, our luck with the weather will continue for oh, another seven months!<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It goes without saying that farming of any sort involves a lot of risk.\u00a0 Those of us growers in the fruit industry incur a little more risk than normal.\u00a0 We have the same commodity and market risk as other growers, but I’d contend that we have a higher risk of weather related events. First, there’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shaworchards.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shaworchards.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shaworchards.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shaworchards.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shaworchards.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.shaworchards.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39,"href":"http:\/\/www.shaworchards.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38\/revisions\/39"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shaworchards.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shaworchards.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shaworchards.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}