The polar vortex that plunged Indiana into a deep freeze in January has taken a toll on the state's peach crop, and an April cold snap has done the same for apples.

Orchard owners are bringing in peaches from out of state and say they may have to do the same for apples this fall.

"It hit most of Indiana pretty bad, but things aren't as bad down in southern Illinois and Kentucky," David Byers, owner of Bedford's Applacres, told The Herald-Times. "In January, the peaches were in pretty good shape dormancy-wise, and we thought they might make it. But then it stayed cold for too long."

Byers, who has owned the orchard since 1952, said he knew the prognosis was poor when he cut into about 100 buds from among the 700 or so trees just after the freeze. Nearly all were brown, not green as they are supposed to be.

Some late-peach varieties survived the winter and should be available in August. In the meantime, he's brought in peaches from Georgia to sell.

The apple crop also took a hit with below-freezing temperatures in mid-April after a balmy spring that encouraged the trees to bud.

Byers said the April freeze killed about half the buds within hours.

"We lost half of our apple crop that morning," he said. "It was an early spring, weeks ahead of normal, then that cold night came, and that was the end of that."

He anticipates buying apples from other states in the fall to meet customers' demands.

Byers is no stranger to crop losses. In 2012, he lost all of his peaches and apples to a single cold snap; much of the state's 2,000 acres of apples and 400 acres of peaches were devastated that year when 80-degree days in March prompted many plants to bud early, only to be killed off by freezing temperatures in April.

He had another bad year in 2007 because of poorly timed weather conditions.

But he's looking ahead to a better year in 2015, so long as the winter cooperates.

"The buds are beginning to form for 2015, and we anticipate at this point it will be OK," he said. "But we've got to get through the winter to see what happens next year."

Source - http://www.kokomotribune.com/