The up and down temperatures of winter are making grape and apple producers nervous and their crops unsure of how to respond.
In recent years, New York has experienced milder winters than it used to with more chaotic temperatures, which makes it difficult for grapes and apples to adjust to weather patterns. New York is the second-largest apple-producing state and the third-largest grape-producing state.
According to the Department of Enviornmental Conservation, Northeast winters have seen average temperature increase by approximately 3 degrees over the past decade. For Syracuse, National Weather Service data show that number is closer to 5 degrees since 2013, and twice that since 2000.
Apples and grapes respond similarly to temperatures, said Jason Lando, a Cornell University associate professor of fruit crop physiology and climate adaptation.
“Every winter, the grapes and the apple trees, they naturally shut down in the fall and get ready for winter dormancy,” said Londo, who tracks the fruits at a test farm in Geneva. “They use temperatures getting cooler as a signal and they use changing light as a signal.”
Throughout the winter, the fruits develop what’s called cold hardiness – or the ability to survive in the cold temperatures, Londo said.
“When we have a mild year, they just don’t defend themselves as well as they would in a cold year,” Londo said.
Grapes and apple trees respond to the warmer temperatures in winter by starting to wake up like they typically would in the spring, and they start to have what is called budbreak.
“Budbreak is when the turtle shell of protection pops open and those tissues inside, they fill with water and start to grow because they are filling with water; they become very sensitive to freezing, so you want budbreak to happen after the last frost,” Londo said.
Londo said the 68-degree day in early February could have triggered the plants to start waking up. Another freeze followed, but he said he believes the crops are safe for now; a repeat of that pattern, however, could be detrimental, he said.
The buds turn to flowers which then turn to fruit, so if they freeze and die, the producers will have fewer crops to harvest.
Grapes prefer consistency rather than varying temperatures, so farmers take steps to mitigate the cold temperatures, said James Nocek, who owns Anyela’s Vineyard, the only estate vineyard on Skaneateles Lake.
“What we do is we take the vines off the trellis and then tie them down to a wire,” Nocek said. “We then cover them up with hay, which insulates them.”
Anyela’s uses thermometers to keep track of the temperatures above the hay and below.
“When it was minus 9 degrees, the temperature under the hay was 21, so what it does is buffer the temperatures,” he said. "At that higher temperature everything is fine, but the lower temperature would have been a bit dicey.”
Anyela’s grows a variety of different grapes such as Riesling, chardonnay, pinot gris, Alberino and for the reds, they have pinot noir, cabernet franc, cabernet sauvignon, shiraz, and willow.
Nocek said some varieties are more sensitive to cold weather than others.
“The Alberino, which is a Spanish grape, we can grow them here because we bury them. That one is a very sensitive grape to winter cold,” Nocek said.
Currently, Nocek says he thinks the grapes will be fine, but it’s because they have prepared for this type of weather. Over the 22 years he’s grown grapes on the land, he has noticed the weather has changed.
“I’ve noticed that it’s a bit warmer, but it’s also more chaotic and that is an undulating variable. That’s worse than being cold all the time,” Nocek said.
If the temperature stayed around 10 degrees all winter, the grapes would be able to adapt to that and protect themselves.
“From a cold weather standpoint, that's the problematic areas we lose sleep over,” Nocek said.
Londo says that while the weather is changing, it will not make the grapes and apples stop growing.
“We’re not going to lose our industries; there’s a lot of things we can do to extend the sustainability of our systems through management,” Londo said.
