Traverse City News and Events

Local Growers See Pluses, Minuses This Season

By Ross Boissoneau | May 5, 2024

The April warmth in northern Michigan produced buds and blooms up to a week earlier than typical springs. While local growers see potential for larger crops, they tell The Ticker it’s brought with it several dangers to cherries, grapes and more.

“Things are very early,” says Frank Lyon of Island View Orchards. “It seems like it’s getting earlier.” He says there has been some fruit damage due to frost, but it’s too early to tell how significant.

“Short term, 2024 is looking like a good tree fruit crop,” says Isaiah Wunsch, the CEO of Wunsch Farms.

“It’s always nice to get an early start,” says Lee Lutes, winemaker for Black Star Farms, which farms property both in Suttons Bay and on the Old Mission Peninsula. “A longer season is better (for wine grapes), especially for reds. They can benefit from a little more hanging time.”

Dr. Nikki Rothwell, Michigan State University Extension Specialist and Northwest Michigan Horticultural Research Center Coordinator, says the long-term outlook may not be so rosy. “I think that these conditions are one of the biggest threats to agriculture, and especially fruit farming in our region.”

The fact the sweet cherry bloom was approaching in late April is concerning. “A few decades ago, we would bloom in mid-May, and more recently, the first week of May,” Rothwell continues. “Climate is speeding up the growing season, and the mild winter we had is further accelerating this year's crop development.”

“With the warmer winter we’re not getting the die-off of some of the diseases and insects you’d expect in a typical winter,” Lutes notes.

He’s right. “Warmer and wetter also increases disease and insect pressure,” says Rothwell. “Fire blight, a bacterial disease in apples, has been worse in recent years because we have warmer springs. Cherry leaf spot is a fungal pathogen that thrives in warm and wet conditions.

“Spotted wing drosophila, our newer invasive pest, also loves high humidity and warm weather. The population can grow exponentially, just like a disease.”

Climate change also means more variability in temperature and precipitation and the probability of more extreme weather events. “We are also facing warmer summers with variable rainfall. We have more common droughts,” says Rothwell, “but those are also coupled with extreme rain events. We have seen more downpours with multiple inches of rain in that last ten years."

“We have also had more hail events in the past decade,” a statement Rothwell made even before the recent hailstorm in the Onekama area that did millions of dollars of damage.

According to the NWS Climate Prediction Center, the long-term outlook calls for normal temperatures and below average precipitation for the next three to four weeks. The one-month outlook is for temperatures above normal and normal precipitation, while the three-month outlook suggests a 40 to 50 percent chance of above-normal temperatures.

Faith Fredrickson, Meteorologist and Agriculture Focal Point with the National Weather Service, notes “My weather forecasting wheelhouse focuses primarily on the next five to seven days, so I can't speak to whether the current trends of earlier springs will continue. However, I do know that the recent early warm-ups are a concern for growers, especially perennial fruit crop growers – grapes, cherries, apples, etc. – who do not have the ability to keep their plants from starting off too early in the year.

“The earlier trees and plants bud in the spring, the more it puts them at risk for being injured by a late frost, if a late frost occurs,” notes Fredrickson. “Typically, the average date of last frost for the Traverse City area tends to be mid to late May.”

Rothwell says her colleague Dr. Jeff Andresen, the State Climatologist for Michigan, is of the opinion that the region should not see any more freezing temperatures this season.

Lutes says farming on both peninsulas gives him perspective. “Old Mission is long and narrow with water on both sides. That helps in planting on mid-level (quality) sites. Leelanau sees less moderating effect of the water, but there’s more land available,” he says.

Wunsch agrees. “Grand Traverse Bay still provides a really good buffer for us,” he says. Not only does it mitigate temperatures, he says the warmer water in the bay tends to help lessen the impact of storms that might sweep across Lake Michigan and the Leelanau Peninsula before they reach his farm. “That big heat sink tends to break them up.”

He says one thing he’s doing to try to mitigate the impact of climate change is broaden the varieties of fruit he grows. “We’ve been reducing the volume of tart cherries and growing more dwarf and sweet trees. Longer term, we try to plant different cherry varieties.”

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