Leelanau fruit growers were breathing a collective sigh of relief Wednesday morning as the chilliest temperatures forecast overnight appeared to bypass the peninsula.

AN APRICOT tree is covered with a protective layer
of ice Tuesday morning at Greg Zotter's Elmwood
Township home. Zotter said he left a sprinkler on
all night to coat the tree with water that eventually
freezes, and keeps frost from dehydrating the new
growth.

Other fruit-growing regions of Michigan were not so lucky.

“It’s too soon to see if there is any (bud) death. But I think we skated by up here,” said Nikki Rothwell, director of the Northwest Michigan Horticultural Research Station in Bingham. “The lowest it got here was 31.1 (degrees). But that was in a lower apple (orchard) site. Not in our higher cherry sites.

“I think we got through it really, really well.”

Frost and freeze warnings were posted for much of the state Tuesday as a weather front from the north settled down on the Great Lakes. With 2002 still fresh in their memory, fruit growers went to bed with their fingers crossed hoping to be spared of a killing frost.

Ninety-percent of the cherry crop was lost to cold weather six years ago, when overnight winds prevented freezing air from settling into low-lying areas. Tuesday night the same water that cools the peninsula in summer months may have been what tempered night time lows.

“The lowest it got up north was 24 in Elk Rapids and Bear Lake,” Rothwell said. “Farther south, temperatures went down considerably lower.”

On a fruit growing ridge that runs by Grand Rapids, temperatures dipped to 21 degrees. It was also cold as far south as Watervliet in Berrien County.

High temperatures from the high 60s to mid 70s Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of last week coaxed some fruit buds to the “early open” cluster stage of development, said Rothwell. White tips could be found on sweet cherry buds, which were further along.

“It seems like it happened overnight,” Rothwell recalled. “Buds that were dormant (tight) 10 days ago seemed like they popped overnight with those warm temperatures.”

Nearer the tip of the peninsula in Leelanau Township, fruit development often lags behind orchards farther south. This week was no exception at Fredrickson orchards, which produce cherries and several other fruits.

“My (cherry) buds are swelled up a bit. But my apricots are white tip,” grower Gary Fredrickson said. “I really don’t know if there’s damage.”

Unseasonably cold temperatures recorded in April 22 in eastern Washington State are believed to have eliminated entire blocks of cherry acreage costing growers millions.

Low temperatures may have also have a negative affect on Utah’s 2008 fruit crop.

“It was 21 degrees and there were three inches of snow on the ground,” Rothwell said. “Not that we wish bad things on growers elsewhere, but it bodes well for our growers when production is lower in the other fruit-growing states.”

A smaller national crop serves to boost cherry prices for growers in Leelanau County.

Based on the long term forecast for Leelanau’s cherry county, it appears the worst is over — at least for now.

High temperatures are expected to edge nearer “normal” measurements in the upper 50s. Lows are not expected to drop below freezing, at least through the weekend.

The warm temperatures are likely to spark further bud development aligning with the average peak bloom window of May 10 or May 12.

“Last year, we were at full bloom on May 3. With the warmer temperatures, it should be just about right for the blossom tour,” said Rothwell.