Michigan tart cherry growers report serious damage from hard freeze
People visit Tidal Basin under the cherry blossoms March 28, 2011 in Washington, DC. The annual 16-day National Cherry Blossom Festival will run thru April 10.
Photographer: Getty Images
Posted: 04/22/2012
SUTTONS BAY TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) - Northern Michigan's tart cherry growers are starting to report serious damage from a hard freeze that followed a late-winter heat wave.
A week-long hot spell in mid-March triggered widespread budding well ahead of normal. Then typical cold weather returned, with temperatures dipping into the 20s on the night of March 25.
Longtime Leelanau County fruit farmer Dave Alpers has 550 acres of tart cherries and 100 acres of sweet cherries in Leland and Suttons Bay townships, about 15 miles north of Traverse City.
He tells the Traverse City Record-Eagle that he's finding 80 to 90 percent of the buds on the area's tart cherries have been killed, as have about 40 to 60 percent of the apple buds.
The northwestern Lower Peninsula produces about four-fifths of U.S. tart cherries.
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