Killer freeze strikes peaches, apples

A shot of withering Easter cold devastated North Carolina peach and apple orchards and may have significantly damaged the state’s blueberry crop, growers said today.

Facing more freezing temperatures in the predawn hours Tuesday morning, Bladen County blueberry grower Sam Rose says he doesn’t have enough water left in his irrigation ponds to protect his 165-acre crop. The thin, insulating coat of ice from the irrigation system helped protect blooms during the worst of the weekend cold.

“We pumped so much water that even if I had to pump again, I couldn’t,” said Rose, whose fields were hit with 20-degree cold early Sunday morning and 26-degree cold before dawn today.

When freezing temperatures hit those fields again early tomorrow morning, Rose can only hope the mercury doesn’t dip below 28 degrees — the lowest his blueberry bushes can tolerate. After that, it will take a few days of sunshine before he can assess how much his crop has been damaged.

Ken Chappell, who grows peaches and apples near the western Moore County town of Eagle Springs, already knows the Easter Sunday cold wiped out both crops.

“They’re 100 percent killed,” he said.

The temperature in Chappell’s orchards dipped to 21 degrees around daybreak Sunday, freezing the sap of delicate peach and apple buds that had risen early this year because of unseasonably warm temperatures in March. Unlike strawberry and blueberry growers, Chappell couldn’t use overhead irrigation sprinklers to protect his blooms with a thin coat of ice. He did use wind machines in an abortive effort to keep the cold from blanketing his crop.