April’s fickle frosts have robbed some growers of their fruit crops on the Western Slope but left others untouched.
Arvin Stahl knew his season was over on April 11, when the thermometer dropped to 20 degrees around Paonia. Even Stahl’s wind machines couldn’t save his 50 acres of apples, peaches, apricots, plums, pears and sweet cherries. The trees had bloomed two weeks early, after temperatures had climbed into the 80s in March. They were at their most vulnerable when the April cold front settled in for nights on end.
“I’m one of the unlucky fellows this year,” said Stahl, whose family has grown fruit since 1924 and loses a crop to frost about once every decade.
Luckily for Colorado fruit fans, many growers in Delta and Mesa counties – the state’s largest fruit producers – avoided that much damage. They say there will be fruit at stands that line country roads throughout the summer.
“We’ll have fruit available for the public,” said Stahl, who promised that even his stand would be open with fruit from other growers who fared better.
Mesa County, where the frost season is three weeks shorter than higher-elevation Delta County, lost an estimated 15 percent of fruit crops during nine nights of freezing temperatures.
In Delta County, growers say they don’t know yet what percentage of the crop was lost overall. That will become evident in several weeks as damaged buds and newly formed fruit drops off the trees.
“I’m here to tell you we have got fruit,” said Richard Kinser, manager of the Rogers Mesa Fruit Co., which packs, processes and ships fruit for 10 growers. “Some got frosted pretty heavily. Some growers just got frosted enough to thin the fruit perfectly. I can tell you there is dead fruit out there. But there is definitely a lot of live fruit.”
Paonia-area growers were hit hardest when winds that normally sweep down from the mountains around the town died down during the freeze, allowing the frigid air to sit in the valley and do its damage.
Stahl said the wind lull combined with the frigid temperatures to create a freeze he rates “one of the worst in 20 years.”
Steve Ela, who grows organic fruit west of Hotchkiss, said he is still waiting to see how much damage his peach, apple and pear crops sustained in an area that isn’t out of danger yet. This weekend, temperatures fell to 29 degrees. Historically, the area has experienced freezes as late as Memorial Day.
Staff writer Nancy Lofholm can be reached at 970-256-1957 or nlofholm@denverpost.com.
