‘We hope they don’t come out and bloom;’ Impact of warmer winter weather on local farmers

ARCANUM — Temperatures recorded in February have entered into the records books as the warmest February for the Miami Valley.

The impact of the warmer weather on farmers is not yet known until harvest and the bushel numbers have been determined.

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Winston Brumbaugh of Brumbaugh Fruit and Fun Farm in Arcanum has picked apples from his orchards for over 50 years and was hoping to avoid the warm winter days.

“If it would stay warm for a week, 70, 72 degrees, you get that sap flowing up through and the buds start to swell a little bit and we hope they don’t come out and bloom,” Brumbaugh said.

The peach trees, however, tell a different story.

“We won’t know until they start to swell,” Brumbaugh said of how the peach crop will yield this year.

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The winter storm may have already decided the fate of Brumbaugh’s peach crop right before Christmas with record-cold temperatures. Some of the trees have dead branches and buds, while others fight to hold on.

“We’ve had crops the last two years. On the average, you probably don’t get a crop in this part of Ohio, maybe two crops out of five years so I don’t think we’re going to have much of a crop this year,” Brumbaugh said.

In six weeks, Brumbaugh will better understand what his apple trees will have in store; however, the peach crop remains unknown.

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