If you found an Essex County-grown peach this summer, you were extremely lucky.

Record cold winter temperatures in January not only wiped out peach buds and this summer’s crop, it killed some trees. And that second bad year for peaches and other tender fruit trees in the last three years has orchard owners banking on kinder weather this winter and next spring.

“Basically, we went from 2012 having no crop, no peaches, but the trees still survived and then last year in 2013 we had a huge peach crop,” Harrow-area orchard owner Keith Wright said this week. “This year, nothing and dead trees. It’s a real roller-coaster from nothing to a lot to nothing and there will be nothing now because of the dead trees.”

The commercial grower ripped out 10 acres of clingstone peach trees that either died or were ailing from the windy cold January nights that got down to -25C or colder. Out of about 2,000 peach trees, Wright estimates he is down to about 30 peach trees. He has crop insurance for the peaches that would have gone to a Michigan processor but insurance won’t cover the lost trees. Wright said he couldn’t estimate his loss.

David Nickels of Nickels Orchards in Leamington brought in peaches from the Niagara region to sell to his customers because he had none from his orchard, but he said his peach trees look good. “In Essex County and Kent County there was just nothing here. We had no apricots, no nectarines, no peaches and very, very few plums. But all the fall stuff looks fantastic.”

The apple and pear crops are tremendous, Nickels said.

Orchard owners can expect to lose a peach crop about every 10 years so the two bad crops in three years are unprecedented. In 2012, it was frost and this year it was the unusually cold winter.

“If nothing happens between today and next July we should be back in the full peach production again,” Nickels said Wednesday.

Nickels has crop insurance and wouldn’t estimate his loss on 90 acres of peaches.

Orchard peach trees usually last about 15 years. Wright said the ones that died were about 10 years old. He may replace them with peaches he could sell on the fresh market but it can take three to four years to get peaches from new trees.

Doug Whaley, who runs the family’s Kingsville-area orchard with his brother, said the younger trees look good and he didn’t lose many older trees because the orchard had already removed them. He said if you have more than one bad year in four you get pretty discouraged in his business. “We’ll just hope that the winter’s OK.”

Sarah Marshall, manager of the Ontario Tender Fruit Producers’ Marketing Board, said 95 per cent of the tender fruit such as peaches, cherries, pears, nectarines and plums are grown in the Niagara area which was spared the winter damage.

Ontario peaches should still be in stores for another week, she said.

Ontario had an almost $28.5 million fresh market peach crop and a $994,827 processing peach crop in 2013.

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