A Big Fruit Freeze

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A Big Fruit Freeze

By: Phil Pendleton - Email

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Cold Snap Affected Some Kentucky Crops

Haney’s Appledale Farm has been in the fruit business for 135 years, but people there say they've only seen freezes about four times. This isn't the worst they've seen, but it's bad enough to seriously affect the harvest.

“That's a small peach right there,” says Don Haney, pointing to a small peach bud that’s black inside.

Haney says every single blossom on every tree in one field is dead because of temperatures that dipped too far below 25 degrees.

“The rule of thumb is about 25 degrees. You still have a pretty good crop. When you start dropping every degree after that you have a good part getting hammered,” Haney explained.

Haney says he was able to save a lot of his apples, but the peach crop is toast. The loss in one field is about 1,000 bushels, worth about $25,000.

“It happens. It's been about every 25 to 30 years in this particular neighborhood that we've had some pretty hard freezes,” says Haney.

Now, the Haney’s are trying to save what apples they can and getting the peach crop ready for 2008.

As for what fruit does make it to the market later this year, “I think you're going to be paying a lot for them, coming from a long distance,” says Haney.

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