Mother Nature deals frigid blow, area vineyards respond

The reality of a freeze is setting in for fruit producers across the area.

Many are working around the clock to protect their plants. It's a battle against Mother Nature that no one wanted to fight this spring, but workers at many vineyards are out in full force.

The crew at Cedar Ridge Vineyards started fires near vines across their property near Swisher, hoping to warm the air enough to save the grapes and the wine production. The fires burned from about 3 a.m. Wednesday until the sun came up.

“We need as many grapes as possible come August and September to supply our retail room and wholesale accounts for the upcoming year,” said Cedar Ridge Vineyards Production Manager Kolin Brighton.

It's a problem this year, more than ever, because of the early spring.

"We're about three weeks early in the bud break this year, which means an early harvest if we don't have frost damage, but this year we're getting into the frost damage situation,” Brighton said.

Employees at Cedar Ridge said the weather has already caused about 50 percent damage to some plants. That means when it's harvest time, it could be slim pickings for wine makers.

Workers at Fireside Winery in Marengo are sharing the same cold-weather concerns. They say the cold spell has already created a production loss of about five percent. They're not doing anything special to protect their plants. Workers said they're simply keeping their fingers crossed the overnight freeze doesn't damage plants any more than they already are.

"We have 13 acres of grapes and 20 to 30 percent of our production is in peril, and so if we have a sustained cold snap, it gets down below 28 degrees for, say four to six hours overnight and it's cold and it's still, our plants could sustain very bad damage,” said Fireside Winery's Brad Johnson.

Johnson said some leaves are already showing signs of damage from other freezes this spring. Overall, he's seeing about a five percent loss in production so far.

Vineyard crews said they wouldn't know how much damage the cold temperatures Tuesday night into Wednesday morning caused for another 24 to 48 hours.