Capital Region farmers are looking to the sky, trying to figure out what effect the warmer than usual winter weather will have on their crops.
After speaking with several area growers, we found out the higher temperatures provide an excellent opportunity for farmers to get quite a bit more outdoor work done right now, but that apple farmers are worried about trees budding too soon.
"I haven't seen anything like this, no," Ed Miller of Goold Orchard in Rensselaer County said.
While motioning to an large field of apple trees in front of him, the veteran farmer said the crop is the 36th he has grown here in the Capital Region.
But Miller he says he has never seen continued, warm weather like this so far into the winter season.
"Any plant that starts to grow now with cold weather will stop growing, but it won't go back," he said.
When Miller gets a chance, he takes a close look at tree branches around the orchard.
"What I'm looking at is these things here, these are the fruit buds," Miller said as he pointed to a tiny bud.
Buds on a tree this time of year are not a good sign for an apple farmer.
"It's started to grow on some varieties, and the buds have swollen, but that's about it. If we start getting real cold, cold weather, there's a possibility that there could be some damage. But it's just too early to tell now."
When asked about the impact the warm weather is having on local crops Matt Nelligan, Manager of Public Affairs with the New York Farm Bureau said, "I have spoken with several of our apple farmers, and most say they'll only get worried if we start seeing a week or more of 50-plus degree days. If it's warm for an extended period of time during the winter, the buds start to grow. That can create an iffy first crop."
Paul Arnold of Pleasant Valley Farm in Argyle, New York says as far as he's concerned, the warmer than usual weather has not been a negative.
"This warm weather isn't affecting our root crops at all at this point because they're stored in a climate controlled root cellar, except for parsnips, which are actually going to be sweeter this year because the ground has been able to be frozen because of the lack of snow."
Arnold explained that snow acts as insulation for the ground keeping it, during many winters, from getting much below 50 degrees Fahrenheit.
But, he says, when the Capital Region has what he refers to as an 'open winter,' or a season with no snow, and fully exposed dirt, the ground freezes, getting as low as 10 degrees for several feet.
Miller says the best case scenario for Goold Orchard is to have more seasonable weather for the rest of the winter season, with temperatures in the thirties during the day, and even colder temps at night.
The Rensselaer County farmer says the warm weather has also made him apprehensive about pruning the apple trees this winter.
He says the sap flow that would cause in these higher temps could also damage the trees.
Ed Miller says in farming, you never know what to expect.
"It's the weather. I don't know what it's gonna do from here on out."
