On Thursday, May 18, between two and seven a.m. the temperature in Ancram dipped to 26. Gidon Coll saw the temperature plummet with increasing trepidation.
“That temperature was enough to kill the young fruit set in the orchard,” said Coll, who grows 150 varieties of heirloom apples outside Ancram. “The kill temp is around 27. A degree or two can make all the difference.”
Nearly 95% of Coll’s crop was wiped out. Apple growers in Elizaville and Red Hook, and from Westchester all the way to the Finger Lakes, also suffered from the record-breaking May frost.
Apples are the largest fruit crop in New York. Growers harvest 32.3 million bushels of the fruit annually, making New York the second-largest apple-producing state in the country.
For many, autumn in New York means a visit to an apple orchard. In fact, it isn’t really fall until your social media feed is clogged with photos of friends picking apples, drinking cider, making pies and eating them.
But this year was a disaster, and not just for apples.
New York’s wine industry, which employs close to 100,000 people, was also devastated. Michael Migliore, president of the Hudson Valley Wine and Grape Association, said many growers told him their losses were the worst in 60 years.
In response, this month 31 counties in upstate New York, including Dutchess and Columbia, received disaster declarations from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The declaration allows farmers to secure emergency low-interest loans from the federal government to help them deal with the financial impacts of the freeze. The loans can cover up to 100% of physical losses from the freeze or 100% of the cost of production, with a cap at $500,000.
The disaster designation was announced by U.S. Senators Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, who had been urging the USDA to declare the emergency.
For local farmers like Coll, the disaster was particularly acute because he had been expecting a crop 50% larger than normal this year.
“When you cut into an apple, you could see the browning in the interior,” Coll said. The New York Cooperative Extension Agency confirmed “the fruit was not going to make it.” A few varieties bloom late, especially cider apples, so Coll still plans to harvest a small crop through early November. “The loss of the crop was a real blow,” he said, “but we have to move on.”
Coll started the Hudson Valley Apple Project in 2012 on a test plot in Ancram, on family land where his parents ran the Short Hills dairy farm until the early 1990s. Coll, whose primary business is the popular hard cider Original Sin, which he started 27 years ago, considers the Ancram orchard his “passion project,” and “my contribution to apple culture.” Except for some help spraying, he does all the work himself. “Things can go wrong quickly if you’re not on top of it.”
He grows Pitmaston Pineapple apples, “a little russet, from England, a sweet eating apple”; Hudson’s Golden Gem, which “tastes like a pear”; Niedzwetzkyana, an ancient type originally from Kyrgyzstan, “the mother of all red fleshed varieties”; Kandil Sinap, a conical variety from Turkey; Api Etoile, from Switzerland; and many others. The produce is sold to a farmers’ market and local cider makers.
In recent years, to get through lean years, many of the state’s apple growers have branched out to attract customers with live music, alcohol, local food and apple picking.
Last Sunday, as every Sunday at the Vosburgh Orchards in Elizaville, you could pick flowers, sample home cooked food by Ukrainian chef Oleg, listen to folk and blues courtesy of Roger and Lenny, and drink homemade cider and beer served in a Dutch post and beam barn that was built in 1830.
The Vosburghs have been growing apples on their land for eight generations, acquiring it originally as Dutch settlers in the 17th Century. Their orchard now comprises 110 acres. Most of the apples go to packing houses to be sold in the U.S., Canada, “and all the way to England” said Mark Stier, a member of the Vosburgh family.
“That night in May we lost all our Idareds, and about 70 percent of the entire crop. Then came three hailstorms in June. They took out another 10%. But we have crop insurance, and with our brewery, we’ll get through this.”
“This family has been doing this for 184 years,” said Mark’s wife Hope. “We’ve seen a lot. We’ll be ok.”
This article was amended to correct a factual error.