Peach Crop Destroyed by Late March Freeze

HARRAH, Oklahoma -- A local farmer will see a shortage of income this summer and some of his workers will be left without a job. But, it has nothing to do with the economy.

Last night's freezing temperatures took a toll on the farmer's peach crop at his Harrah orchard. Last night and early this morning it was a battle between man and nature to try to save this year's peach crop. This time, nature won out.

It looks like something out of a science fiction movie, but the science behind peach farmer Gary Dye's contraption is his last chance to save his peach crop.

"The principle is I try to bring the temperature up," Dye said. "We're pushing about four million BTW with a fan."

The device is hooked up to a propane take and Dye is blowing heat onto the 5,000 trees in his orchard trying to keep them warm.

"You can bring the temperature up about three degrees, but you're going to get about 26," Dye said. "Anything 27 or below, you'll lose your total crop."

Despite his best efforts, Dye's crop was lost.

"At 7 a.m. this morning we were down to 23 degrees and that equates to a total crop failure," he said.

That's a loss of about $100,000 and no work this year for his seven helpers.

Three years ago Dye found himself in a similar situation, but there was a layer of warm air on top of the cold air so he brought in a helicopter to push the warm air down onto the crop.

"The temperatures weren't as drastic as this and we had success with that," Dye said.

Agriculture experts say it was at least 10 years ago when Oklahoma last saw a spring freeze that damaged crops. They say a temperature falling below 28 degrees for two hours is all it takes.

"We had a lot of sites that were below freezing for eight, nine hours," OSU Extension Educator Ray Ridlen said.

They are hoping this is the last cold blast of the year. Meanwhile, Dye is already preparing for next year.

"I've got thermometers throughout the orchard to gather some data just to see what we can fine tune for the next time," Dye said.

The OSU extension service says it will still be a couple more days before they can determine if the wheat crops were damaged by the freeze.