Mother Nature’s mad year: Tonnemaker Hill Farm’s harvest took hit from 2021 weather

ROYAL CITY — The thing about farming is, it’s a gamble. Some years it rains at the right time, it’s warm at the right time, cool at the right time. Other years – well, it’s not.

Kole Tonnemaker, part owner of Tonnemaker Hill Farm in Royal City, said 2021 is one of those years in which Mother Nature threw a tantrum, then settled down and actually smiled on farmers. Tonnemaker grows fruits and vegetables for sale at the family fruit stand, at farmers markets throughout the state, and through the farm website.

Cherry harvest was in full swing in late June and early July when record-breaking heat slammed down on eastern Washington. Cherries almost ripe took a beating.

“We lost quite a bit of fruit to the heat,”Tonnemaker said.

Temperatures hit 112 to 115 degrees, and in some places the cherries couldn’t take it. The Tonnemaker orchard was one of those places. Cherries shriveled on the trees.

“They looked like raisins,” Tonnemaker said.

He’s been farming for 50 years, he said, and he’s rarely seen that.

Jon DeVaney, president of the Washington State Tree Fruit Association, said cherry damage depended in part on the orchard’s location. Some growers finished harvest, and in other places cherries were still ripening. But a grower who was in the sweet spot – or this year, the sour spot – where the cherry crop was just approaching harvest, took a beating.

Apples, on the other hand, didn’t suffer so much, Tonnemaker said.

“I’m just amazed. We had almost no sunburn,” he said. “Very, very little sunburn.”

Apples can sunburn, just like humans. Sunburned apples develop brown spots.

Some apple varieties did fare worse than others. Tonnemaker Hill Farms is an organic operation, growing varieties old and new. Some of the old (Red Jonathan, a variety of Jonathan) and new varieties (Cameo) produced very small fruit. The Gala apples split around the stems, Tonnemaker said, something that has happened before, but this was the worst he’d seen.

Peaches and nectarines came through unscathed, Tonnemaker said. Bartlett pears weren’t so lucky. The fruit was very small.

“The conventional wisdom is they (Bartletts) like hot weather,” he said. “But they didn’t like this summer.”

And then, around mid-August, the weather gods changed their minds. Temperatures dropped to mid-80s, and the days have stayed mild and sunny throughout the fall.

“It’s been pretty nice weather to grow things, ever since then,” Tonnemaker said.

In fact, the weather since mid-August has been great for promoting internal quality and color of apples, he said.

DeVaney said the 2021 apple crop is projected to be about 124.85 million boxes. (Each box holds 40 pounds of apples.) There was a time when a crop bigger than 100 million boxes would give growers heart palpitations, but the apple market is different now.

“There’s a lot more diversity in what we’re producing,” DeVaney said.

Tonnemaker Hill Farms fills a niche for consumers who want organic fruit. Other growers are part of cooperatives of what DeVaney called proprietary apples. Only growers who are part of the coop are allowed to grow them.

“Calibrating your production with the market,” DeVaney said.

And prices in 2021?

“That’s one of those interesting questions,” DeVaney said. “It depends on which variety you’re talking about.”

Apples remain a popular choice for consumers.

“We’ve seen strong demand for apples throughout the pandemic,” DeVaney said.

Export markets also remain strong, although fewer shipping disruptions would help, he said.

Cheryl Schweizer can be reached via email at cschweizer@columbiabasinherald.com.