Franconian fruit growers complain of dramatic damage caused by night frosts. Are strawberries, cherries, apples, plums and apricots now more expensive?
Photo: Heiko Becker
The moonlit frost night from Monday to Tuesday was the end of Christian Hoch’s strawberry fields. “The ice saints are always a danger to strawberries. But it hasn’t been as bad as this year for a long time,” complains the farmer, who runs a strawberry and poultry farm near Mellrichstadt (Rhn-Grabfeld district). Seven strawberry fields have a high ; and after the night of Tuesday all seven strawberry fields were broken. “Of course we tried water,” reports Hoch. But frost protection irrigation could not save his plants either.
Four degrees below zero in Mellrichtstadt: strawberries don’t survive
“We had minus four degrees here in Mellrichstadt; it was just too hard!” The plants could endure short periods of frost of minus one degree, but they did not survive minus four degrees. The green asparagus, says Hoch, was caught by the frost, but asparagus is growing again. Not strawberries. Could he make up for the losses? “How then,” the farmer asks desperately. He also keeps poultry, but that does not suddenly multiply miraculously, thus correcting the loss of earnings from fruit. “We just have to see how we can get through this year,” says the farmer. Hoch hopes for a special frost aid program from the state government, as was the case in 2017 when the frost damage was severe at the time. The farmer cannot currently estimate whether such a program will also be launched this year.
Littered strawberry fields were more susceptible to frost
In Wrzburg, Kitzingen and Schweinfurt, the cold was less grim in the first nights of this week than in the Rhn-Grabfeld district. However, a degree or two minus was also measured here; and in these circles too, according to Thomas Riehl, consultant for fruit growing at the Office for Nutrition, Agriculture and Forestry in Kitzingen, numerous strawberry fields fell victim to the frost. According to Riehl, this is partly due to the fact that most of the berries were already heavy and large and almost ready to harvest; During this period of growth, farmers would often have sprinkled straw to keep the fruit dry and clean. “This was inconvenient in that a floor covered with scattered material can no longer radiate heat.”
Photo: Karl-Josef Hildenbrand, dpa
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But not only strawberries have been spoiled by the frost. “Cherry and apple trees in particular have suffered,” says Riehl. There are, for example, differences in apples depending on the variety: The Topaz variety, for example, is not very susceptible to disease, but, like the Jonagold Frost variety, does not tolerate it well. “Gala and Pinova endure frost better.” According to Riehl, there were big differences in frost damage depending on the location. “There was hardly any damage on the Lower Main, presumably due to stronger cloud cover. Even very deep areas got away better because of the fog.” At higher altitudes in the Wrzburg, Kitzingen and Schweinfurt districts, according to Riehl, many fruit trees, however, suffered considerable damage: “The fruits have slight discolouration; they are not black, but are rather brownish and will soon fall off.”
Fruit-growing consultants expect 30 percent harvest failures for apples and cherries
How high are the crop failures? Riehl is expecting around 30 percent less yield this year for cherries and apples. However, the specialist adviser emphasized that this was not solely the result of the frosty frost night, but that a number of frost nights in early April and around Easter had also contributed to this. Peaches and apricots have been damaged much more than apples by these frost nights, adds Alexander Zimmermann, test engineer for fruit growing at the Bavarian State Institute for Viticulture and Horticulture in Veitshchheim.
Around Easter peach trees would have been in full bloom; the Easter frostnights would not have survived these fruit trees. Amount of damage? “A total failure of apricots and peaches cannot be ruled out,” said Zimmermann. When asked why endangered fruit growers could not prevent the loss of harvest with frost protection irrigation, Zimmermann says: “Irrigation is an effective method, but it requires an enormous amount of water, which is often not available.” Farmers in rainier northern Germany would often have to drill “only two or three meters into the earth” to encounter groundwater, which they could then use for irrigation. But in sunny Mainfranken you would have to “drill 30, 40 meters!” That is not feasible in practice.
Photo: Alois Wohlfahrt
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Dangerous climate change: Early flowering makes fruit trees more vulnerable
Paradoxically, the frost damage to fruit that has hoofed in recent years is not due to the frost itself. “There have always been ice saints,” says strawberry farmer Hoch from Mellrichstadt. The climate-related earlier flowering of fruit crops is problematic. “We have earlier sprouts in many crops. In recent years the fruit plants have been flowering two weeks earlier than in the 90s and are therefore more susceptible,” explains consultant Riehl. This is not a Mr, but clearly documented. In his view, the frost damage in recent years is not due to capricious weather, but actually to climate change.
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Wrzburg
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Gisela Rauch
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Apricots
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Cherries
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Cold and frost
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Farmers and farmers
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fog
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fruit
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Fruit growing
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Peaches
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Plants and flora
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plums
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