Cherry and apricot orchards suffered the greatest damage when temperatures plunged into the 20s Sunday and Monday nights, but Southwest Idaho commercial growers are optimistic that they'll still have a crop this year.
The cold kept local growers up at night operating wind machines and running water to their orchards to keep the budding fruit from freezing.
"Right now we're in full bloom," Gary Garrett of Garrett Ranches near Homedale said. "We're just kind of hopeful we have something to work with."
The low Monday night was 23 degrees in Homedale, according to the National Weather Service. That kind of extreme can be fatal to Treasure Valley tree fruit, much of which is blooming.
Garrett has 220 acres of apples, cherries, plums, peaches and apricots.
"It looks like we're in pretty good shape, but the hardest hit was the apricots," Garrett said Tuesday. "I've got about 15 acres of apricots. The peaches look like they will be OK, though."
He said the soft fruits - apricots, cherries, plums, peaches - suffered the most damage from the subfreezing temperatures. He expects as much as 75 percent loss in his 15 acres of cherries.
His apples fared best. "Our apples were hit, but it's not a wipeout," he said.
Garrett said when the mercury started dropping Sunday night he began running water to the trees to bring the temperature up.
"We don't start seeing damage until it gets to 27 degrees," Garrett said.
Nearby, Bob Gonzales at Snake River Fruit Growers said his wind machines and propane heaters helped with his Sunny Slope orchards.
"We saw maybe 10 to 15 percent loss with cherries and apricots," Gonzales said. "The apricots got it the worst."
He said the die-off is about what growers would need to thin anyway.
"So we're still optimistic we'll have a decent crop," he said.
"Last year we got hit in May, and that was worse than this year. We lost 35 percent of our apricots and 50 percent of our cherries."
Weather data forecasts the last probable chance for frost on May 10, according to Valerie Mills, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Boise. After that date, the chance of frost drops significantly. For the next several days, "It'll be continued mild with a front coming through," Mills said. "Forecast lows, though, will stay above freezing. I'm glad to hear the growers didn't get hit too bad."
In 2007, Idaho cherry growers produced 1,500 tons of sweet cherries, almost all of which came from Southwest Idaho, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The agency does not keep data on apricots.
Garrett said it is still a little early to know how bad the last two days of frost were. It will be a month before most growers can say what kind of yields they'll see this year.
"There always seems to be one or two nights every season when we're out with the trees," Garrett said. "Sometimes it's just a day. Sometimes just an hour can kill you."
David Kennard: 377-6436
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