PHILLIPSTON — As Red Apple Farm prepares for its fourth annual Sunflower Festival this weekend, the staff is pulling out all the stops to make sure a Level 3 drought doesn’t ruin this season’s apple harvest.
“I feel optimistic and we had some timely rains but we had to irrigate more than normal and work more to keep our crops in good shape for the fall harvest,” Al Rose, owner of Red Apple Farm, said. “For farms in the Northeast, long-term drought management is going to be more and more important because of global warming and warmer summers every year.”
The state’s Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs has deemed most of Massachusetts as “Level 3 – critical drought,” which enacts a ban on all unnecessary outdoor water use.
Despite the drought, Rose is optimistic about the upcoming apple harvest. The farm is currently picking four kinds of apples that ripen in early August, and by late September, the apple season should be in full swing.
“The trees that weren’t doing well with the drought, you can see the effect that the heat has on them, especially on the last remaining original Macintosh apple tree,” Rose said. “That tree was planted in 1912 and the drought has killed the top section. The 100-year-old tree did not like the stress of this year but it is still producing offspring.”
Adapt, diversify and change are what farmers must do to keep their farms operating. Rose claims farms are at a disadvantage because everything they do is experience-based.
“Adapting to things that are out of our control, like extreme weather, is what you do as a farmer,” Rose said. “It seems like we are always adapting and changing. COVID-19 really challenged our ability to adapt and change.”
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Rose said he has his grandfather’s records of strategies the farm has used in the past to protect the harvest from certain weather but he realized that his grandfather didn’t have to deal with the result of climate change and extreme weather.
“You really can’t prepare for unpredictable weather; what you really can do is start thinking of options, make a decision and take the three- or four-day window that weather forecast gives you to prepare for the worst,” Rose said. “We always joke that the reality of farming is that you are gambling all of the time.”
How do farmers water crops in a drought?
“With drought years like this, we are not able to keep up with the demand. It just has been one of the hottest years in a long time,” Rose said. “We had to dig wells into our irrigation system to keep up with the water demand for our crops.”
At Red Apple Farm, there are four rainwater- and percolation-filled ponds. Two are currently used for irrigation and the other are backups for emergency use. The ponds in use are running low because there has been little to no rain to refill them this summer, but the crops demand more water as the temperatures reach record-high numbers.
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Other weather hazards that hurt farming
“There has been a couple of years where we have run out of water completely,” Rose said. “In 2019, we had a really bad hail storm and in a matter of minutes, 60% of our apples were gone. This year, the apples look great, they just need more water.”
“You never know with these thunderstorms. We say we want them to hit us but with a lot of these storms come hail and for an apple farmer you don’t want hail,” Rose said. “Farms are such a weather-dependent operation.”
Constructing irrigation wells is something farmers can do to keep up with the hot temperatures. However, the cost of developing the wells is an obstacle for most farms when looking for solutions to keep their crops alive.
State programs help with farm irrigation
“Three years ago, we applied for this state program that helps farms build irrigation wells to prepare for dry summers,” Rose said. “Our project was not funded until now. The total cost of the program is about $20,000.”
The Farmers Service Agency and the United States Department of Agriculture fund several grant and loan programs that give farmers financial support to construct irrigation systems that help them fight against the drought and other extreme weather.
“We are the first farm in the state to get funded and to be able to start the construction of the solar panel powered well pump,” Rose said. “Green Mount Well Company based in Vermont is putting in the solar panels that will make the irrigation pond more reliable and sustainable.”
If you go to the Sunflower Festival
The fourth annual Sunflower Festival will be Saturday, Aug. 20 and Sunday, Aug. 21, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. It will feature live music, food and vendors.
If you go to the Appleseed Country Fair
The farm is also hosting the Appleseed Country Fair, which will be held over Labor Day weekend, Sept. 3-5. Admission is $15 per car.
The farm is at 455 Highland Ave., Phillipston.
For more information, visit the farm’s website at redapplefarm.com.
