Grape growers in the Finger Lakes region, and across the state, probably won’t know until fall how much damage was done by a late spring frost and freeze. Cornell Cooperative Extension estimates that 30 to 50 percent of the grape crop was damaged on May 18. Executive Director of the New York Wine and Grape Foundation Sam Filler called it bad luck and bad timing.
“The season started earlier this year, because we had warmer temperatures in April and the beginning of May," Filler said. "And so we had what is called bud break. Once that happens, [buds] are very vulnerable to freezing temperatures.”
But Filler says there’s a chance the vines might recover.
“There is some optimism that secondary shoots will grow, and they will also have their own fruit sets," Filler said. "We really won't know until late in the summer or early fall what the harvest is actually going to be like. Some folks may or may not actually be able to salvage their harvest.”
Still, Filler says enough damage might have been done to meet the threshold for federal emergency relief. Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand are putting US Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack on notice that he may be asked to approve a crop disaster declaration for grape and apple crops. Filler says the relief would be welcome because not all growers have crop insurance.
“There's a lot of upfront investment that growers have made that they're going to have to eat that cost now," said Filler. "They're not necessarily going to have the income from selling their grapes at the end of the season that they would have expected during harvest.”
Filler says New York is the third largest grape producing state in the nation, with an estimated 100,000 jobs and a $6.5 billion economic impact. That includes all the wine and grape juice produced from the grapes.
