With temperatures fluctuating this spring, Steve Tennes is racing to finish pruning at Country Mill Farms in Charlotte while keeping a close eye on the forecast to protect the family’s apple, peach and blueberry crops.
Tennes, whose last name is pronounced like the sport “tennis,” owns the 213-acre farm with his wife. The couple, both military veterans, run the operation full time.
“We’re about 20 minutes southwest of East Lansing, and we have 213 acre family farm here, with about 40 acres of apples and a couple acres of peaches and blueberries and pumpkins and pears and all the good stuff,” Tennes said. “We invite families out to our farm in the fall for harvest with a little family fun on the farm, little agrotainment.”
The orchard dates back to shortly after the Civil War and has been in the family for more than 50 years.
This time of year, the focus is on completing winter pruning and brush cleanup before green tissue and sap begin moving in the trees.
“As the trees start to put out more green tissue, the low temperature that they can withstand becomes higher,” Tennes explained. “We’re watching the temperatures and the different stages of development for our trees.”
He compared the process to growing degree days: steady, cooler temperatures in the 40s and 50s are ideal, but rapid warm-ups followed by sharp drops into the 30s or lower can stress the developing buds.
Right now, anything below 25 degrees draws close attention, though the farm has invested in resilience measures.
“Farmers have done a lot over the last 10-15 years to be resilient here in Michigan, and that is, we’ve got a lot of fans to our orchard to help raise the temperature on cold nights where it might dip down below that critical freezing temperature,” Tennes said.
In 2012, a late frost devastated Michigan’s apple crop, affecting about 95% of the harvest across more than 900 family farms.
“That is when a lot of us farmers started trying to take matters in our own hands and doing different techniques, particularly using what we call fans, which are large towers that help warm the air on cold nights, in order to save the apple blossoms.”
Every blossom represents a potential apple or peach. Once blooms emerge, damage can begin around 28 degrees, with losses accelerating as temperatures drop further.
“When the blossoms are actually out, you can only, like about 28 degrees Fahrenheit, you start losing 10% of them. And then for every degree you go down, it’s like 20-30% you start to lose. And so we want to keep it above, you know, 30 degrees Fahrenheit, when the apple blossoms and peach blossoms are out in the orchard.”
Peaches typically bloom first, followed by apples, then blueberries, which have slightly more resilience. The farm also selects later-blooming varieties as a buffer against single cold nights. High winds and storms, like those that swept through the Charlotte-to-Lansing area in the past year, have caused additional tree damage the farm is still recovering from.
“Farmers are resilient. We just wake up every day with a positive attitude and go out there and continue to try to grow the locally grown fruit for our customers that we can.”
So far this season, conditions look promising as the crew prepares wind machines and finishes trimming.
“Right now, it’s looking really well,” Tennes said. “We’re preparing our wind machines, finishing the trimming we’re doing all the work that we need to as stewards of this land here to be ready for a bountiful harvest this year at Country Mill Farms.”
The farm is the family’s sole livelihood. On especially cold nights, they sometimes supplement the fans by burning pruned apple branches to create smoke that the fans then circulate, though the towers usually suffice.
The public season begins July 22 with u-pick organic blueberries and the farm’s famous blueberry donuts, followed by peaches, sunflowers and later fall activities including apples, pumpkins and family events.
“We appreciate all the support from our fellow Michiganders as farmers are going out this spring, being busy on the roadways and watching the weather and so and we definitely appreciate the support that people value buying locally grown Michigan apples and other fruits, and that allows us to keep that food source close to home.”