Farm Owner Josh’s report from the overnight shift on Tuesday, April 21st 2026:

We called in the assistance of two helicopters last night: a larger Airbus and smaller Robinson, to fill in while the airbus was refueling in Newburgh. They ran from 3:00am-6:30 a.m. The last time we did this was 2020, and 2016 before that.  It’s not always the case, but for last night these measures were absolutely necessary.

While weather apps were reading 27°F, and the thermometers in our higher elevation hill orchard blocks remained above 28°F, the situation on the lower ground was very different by 3:00 a.m. One thermometer in our pears hit 25°F and another in our lowest elevation cider apples a discouraging low of 19°F.

The farm crew steadfastly rose at 2:00 a.m to light hundreds of tiki torches to mark the orchard for the pilots, as well as dozens of old school orchard oil heaters, which circulate air while adding a little heat to the atmosphere. The efforts paid off and the temperature increased; In our cider apples up to 21°F at 3:30 a.m and then even further up to 23° by 4:30 a.m. The temperature in our pears never dropped much below 24°F. In hindsight, we probably could have benefited from starting the helicopters a little earlier, but that’s life… 3:00am seemed more civilized.

What will these temperatures actually mean for our crop? That’s really hard to say, especially at this stage in the game. The orchard‘s bloom has a noticeable brown cast today. Bud hardiness charts from university research programs will tell you that crop damage starts at 28°F, and becomes almost total by 24°F. This would indicate we lost 90% of our season’s fruit in the lowest lying areas of the farm (about half our acreage), which would indeed be pretty awful. My experience with past spring freezes gives me reason to be a bit more optimistic if not quite cheery. First, the amount of buds we started out with this year were ample. And because their emergence was driven by a series of hot days last week, a lot of the flower clusters have not yet opened, meaning they should have been a little bit less frost prone. Still, I expect this was one of the worst freezes the farm’s seen in the past 10 years at least. We won’t have a really good sense for weeks what kind of crop we are actually dealing with (when the apples that survived set fruit and the ones that were too damaged abort and drop from the tree). Let’s keep our fingers crossed and take some solace knowing it likely would have been much worse had we not done what we did.

 

browning apple blossoms the morning after the frost

a helicopter flying over the orchard

helicopter flight path

 

Update from the Farm on Saturday, April 18th 2026:

Low,  unseasonable temperatures pose a serious risk to our fruit trees, especially our apple blossoms. At this stage of bloom, every degree below 28°F can cause significant damage to the crop, up to complete crop loss in the low 20’s.

Because our orchard sits on rolling terrain, we are also at risk of a temperature inversion on clear, still nights. In these conditions, colder air settles in the lower parts of the farm while warmer air sits above it, meaning ground-level temperatures can be 5-10 degrees colder than the forecast. To protect the crop, we will be using frost mitigation methods, including orchard heaters and, importantly, a helicopter to circulate warmer air down throughout the orchard.

April 21, 2026