LEWISBURG, Pa. — It was a chilly day Wednesday at the Lewisburg Farmers Market. Despite 70-degree weather earlier this week, parts of our area are now under a freeze warning. Temperatures are expected to dip below freezing overnight. That's one of the worst things a fruit farmer could hear in late April.
"The ideal weather is definitely not what we're going to be experiencing tonight, that's for sure," Michael Stahl of Dries Orchard said.
"One night will destroy an entire crop, and it's only one shot in the dark. They don't come back like other things you can replant. Once the flowers are destroyed, that crop is gone for the entire year," Ray Zimmerman of Zimmerman Farms said.
Farmers say this is déjà vu for them because they went through something very similar last May.
"We lost our peach crops. We might have had a 20 percent at best of apple crops. We lost cherries and plums," Zimmerman said.
Zimmerman has a farm in Pitman. He says if it's windy, the frost might not settle into the fruit.
"But if it's in the 20s, it's just too cold. It doesn't matter if it's windy or not," Zimmerman said.
Some farmers use wind machines.
"We will be trying to protect some strawberries with water irrigation. But as far as with the wind machines, if it's 15 to 20 mph winds, totally ineffective," Stahl said.
Dries Orchard is in the Sunbury area and has more than 70 acres of apple trees. Farmers say there is not much they can do when a freeze warning is concerned.
"Cross your fingers and pray, pray a lot," Stahl said.
Farmers also advise everyone at home to bring your plants inside or make sure they are covered.