After freeze, Mo. orchard owners buying fruit from other states

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. -- Owners of Missouri orchards hit hard by an Easter freeze are looking to other states to provide peaches, blackberries and blueberries for their customers.

David Murphy knows customers will be hankering for fresh peaches this summer, so he has vowed to provide a harvest. But with the peach crop at his Marionville orchard non-existent because of the freeze, Murphy is looking for affordable peaches in South Carolina, Georgia and Michigan so he can resell them.

"They're out there, but finding them means making buying trips to other states," he said. "Some of them are charging quite a bit. We're trying to find some that customers can afford."

John Avery, Missouri State University Fruit Experiment Station field superintendent, said Missouri's peach crop was wiped out in the freeze. Blackberry and blueberry plants were also hit hard, he said.

Some apple orchards will have crops, but Avery expects to see many Missouri orchards selling apples from other states.

A lack of fruit doesn't mean orchard operators won't have work to do this summer. Orchards must be mowed and trees need to be sprayed to prevent diseases, even if they don't bear fruit and make money for an orchard.

Murphy does expect at least a partial apple crop this summer. And his decision to cover three acres of strawberries before the freeze preserved about 60 percent of that crop, which is now being harvested. Three acres of grapes fared about as well as the strawberries, he said.

Campbell Farm owner Mike Campbell said that, based on what he has heard from other growers, fans of blueberries and blackberries shouldn't expect much. As for strawberries, Campbell is trying to bolster the produce supply at his farm near Clever by buying Arkansas berries.

But Campbell counts himself lucky for suspecting that unusually high temperatures in March might signal an abrupt change. Instead of planting sweet corn and other produce around April 1, he decided to wait.