The growing season hasn’t officially started, but Idalou Harvest is already counting losses.

The 55-acre farm grows peaches, grapes, onions, cherries and more. A stretch of rain, cold temperatures and hail has created problems at the worst possible time — just as crops are preparing to bloom.

“I hate to say this but I’ve gone home many of nights and cried because there’s nothing else I could do but we did everything we could do. This is our livelihood and if we lose it all, we lose it all,” said Lucinda Mann, who helps manage the farm.

To keep ground temperatures stable, the farm has been setting row fires — a labor-intensive effort to protect what’s still viable. But the weather has created a second challenge: an unusually early warm-up is pushing peach trees to blossom ahead of schedule, putting those crops at risk of a late freeze.

Walking the rows, Mann assesses the damage firsthand.

“I see some bad ones this one isn’t any good, it died out. This one could be possibly. These here aren’t quite open yet so there’s a good chance that these made it,” Mann said.

Some crops didn’t survive. Apricot blossoms took a hit, and the cherry crop is a complete loss.

“Apricots have bloomed but the blossoms are way up high we lose a bunch of blossoms on the apricots. We already know that. We lost multiple things like the cherries are all froze out,” Mann said.

Peach season typically spans several weeks in June. This year, the farm expects fewer producing trees than in previous seasons. If conditions continue to deteriorate, the consequences could extend beyond the harvest.

“We don’t want to think about it or go there. If it gets bad, we’ll have to lay people off. We won’t be able to buy stuff we need,” Mann said.

Mann says the situation is a reminder of how fragile farming can be — and why community support matters.

“Without farmers you’re not going to eat, and farmers and farm land is getting less and less every year. We need to protect what we have, help support what we have and support local because this where the money is at,” Mann said.

Source - https://www.kcbd.com