Northeast Ohio Fruit Growers Face Devastating Crop Losses This Season

You might have noticed fewer local peaches at the farm stand or a slightly higher price on a bag of apples this season.

An unusually damaging stretch of spring weather took a toll on fruit crops across Northeast Ohio, leaving some growers with significantly smaller harvests of stone fruit and apples in what they describe as a once-in-a-generation loss stretching across much of the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic.

At Quarry Hill Orchards in Berlin Heights, owners Brooke and Ben Gammie are seeing the effects firsthand. The orchard lost its entire cherry crop, roughly 70% of its peaches and about 40% of its apples.

“This is something that we wrestle with in our line of work every year, and usually there's isolated weather pockets,” Ben says. “But for the first time in a lot of guys' memory, this is wholesale throughout the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic.”

The bulk of the damage traces to the early morning hours of April 7, when temperatures dipped below what developing fruit buds and blossoms could tolerate. Many trees were at particularly vulnerable stages of development, with two additional frost events later that month compounding the losses. But it was just a “couple of hours of the wrong weather,” Ben says, that ultimately “did them in.”

For Quarry Hill, that means no pick-your-own cherries or peaches this year, though a limited peach crop will still be harvested and sold.

Apples fared better, but the effects vary by variety. Quarry Hill has almost no Red Delicious this year, and some surviving Galas are showing russeting: a rough, scarred appearance that can develop when a bud is damaged by frost but survives to produce fruit.

In a typical year, localized frost damage can be offset by sourcing fruit from growers in other regions. But this year, widespread losses across Michigan, Pennsylvania, New York and the Mid-Atlantic have left fewer places to turn, limiting the supply of locally and regionally grown fruit.

With less fruit available to sell, Brooke says supporting local farms can take other forms. At Quarry Hill, that might mean attending an event, buying a bottle of wine or stopping by for ice cream — experiences and products that provide revenue even when Mother Nature limits the harvest. 

“There’s other ways our community can help us without going to pick cherries or peaches this year, and we would be grateful for that,” she says.

The shortage is already trickling down to consumers. City Fresh, a Northeast Ohio nonprofit that fills weekly farm boxes with produce sourced from local growers, typically tries to include at least one fruit in both its single and family shares. This season, that hasn't always been possible.

“It has been a lot more difficult to find fruit, especially in the early season,” says Sam Paskert, farmer liaison for City Fresh.

Some weeks, the organization couldn't source enough fruit to include any in its smaller shares. Strawberries and raspberries were harder to come by, and two of the orchards City Fresh typically sources from experienced near-total crop failures.

City Fresh works within a set purchasing budget each week, so when fruit isn't available, Paskert says the organization fills the gap with more vegetables or other locally produced foods. 

“Sometimes in the early season, if we're really low on fruit and it's also low on produce as well, we'll do kind of like other homemade items that are less perishable,” she says, including local honey, maple syrup or jam.

As summer progresses, the harvest is shifting. Paskert says local growers are anticipating a strong watermelon and cantaloupe season, bringing more fruit into the mix after a difficult start.

Alex Buck, president of the Fruit Growers Marketing Association, describes this growing season as inconsistent. 

While weather extremes create concern, some farms are already investing in ways to better protect future harvests. Bauman’s Orchards is expanding the use of hail netting over high-value tree fruit, including Honeycrisp apples and other premium varieties. The protective coverings help shield crops from damaging summer hailstorms, reducing the risk of losing an entire season's worth of fruit.

Many farmers are also rethinking what they grow. Rather than continuing to plant older varieties that may be more vulnerable to extreme weather, Buck suggests transitioning to apples, peaches and cherries that are both more resilient and more profitable. The goal is to help growers get through an increasingly unpredictable climate while ensuring the farm remains economically sustainable for years to come.

"If we're going to grow an apple, a peach or a cherry, we're going to grow the right varieties — ones that are more resilient to weather events and give our growers the best return," says Buck.

At Quarry Hill, this year's lighter crop could mean a better harvest next year, and Ben expects a strong return bloom in 2027, as long as the weather cooperates.

Still, what next season brings is ultimately out of growers' hands.

“That is the bed we are sleeping in,” says Brooke. “Which we know very well is the case when you partner with Mother Nature as a business partner.”

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