Mike Omeg's cherry farm survived a historic November 2014 freeze that killed trees across the region and cut 2015 yields. His trees managed with the AEA approach and complete nutrition showed no freeze damage while nearby traditional blocks were wiped out. He harvested 110% of his prior year's crop, 10% more than 2014.
Questions this video answers
November 2014.
From about 43°F low to −4°F (a few days later).
110% (10% more cherries in 2015 than in 2014).
The AEA-managed orchard.
Chapters
Early fall freezes happen in our area, and our trees have done fine. In fact, In November of 2014, we had a historic freeze. You know, once every 50 years sort of freeze happened here in our area, where we went from low temperatures in the mid to low 40s to just a few days later here at my house, we were -4 Fahrenheit. So we went from 43 degrees Fahrenheit as our low. We had no frost at all, no freezing temperatures at all for those trees to acclimate till we were at minus four. And there was a substantial impact of that freeze in the orchard area here. Locally, in the Dalles, there were many, many dozens of acres of trees that were killed. And that 2015 crop, that next year's crop, was really low in many of the area orchards. However, interestingly enough, on our farm, we actually picked 110%. So we picked 10% more cherries in 2015 than we did in 2014. So the average orchard in our area had, I'm just going to say, roughly half to three quarters of a crop. On our farm, we actually picked more cherries. And what I like in that too, is that our trees going into that freeze had had complete nutrition as best as we could accomplish that in those buds that were going into that freeze. And they survived much better, in my opinion, than buds that were being managed under a conventional traditional nutrition program. And I have evidence of that here on our farm, because in 2014, we were actually still doing evaluations of the AEA approach and of post harvest nutrition. And so I had orchards that were side by side where the AEA managed orchard had no freeze damage at all. But the orchard right next to it, that was, I was managing under the traditional program that we followed here on our farm. That orchard completely was wiped out and had to be removed after that 2014 freeze. The orchard industry in our area suffered because of it. But what it taught me is that the resilience of these trees, when they have complete nutrition is really, really substantial, far more than what anybody would have imagined, including myself.
