Maine’s apple growers expect to feel the past winter’s wrath for years to come.

A dearth of snow allowed January’s bitter temperatures to drive frost 5 feet into the ground in some orchards. The result: “We’re counting dead trees not by the hundreds but by the thousands,” said Don Ricker of Turner-based Ricker Orchards.

Peter Wallingford said the orchards bearing his name in Auburn suffered “98, 99 percent loss” of some varieties, and peach trees were a 100 percent loss. Wallingford estimated his overall loss at about 25 percent of his 4,000 apple trees.

Hardest hit were the younger trees, ones that began producing fruit within the past year or two, said Wallingford. He said the loss will be long-term because it sometimes takes up to eight years for new trees to become productive.

He said orchards as far south as Springvale suffered winter kill the like of which hadn’t been seen in years.

Maine Department of Agriculture and University of Maine experts weren’t immediately available Monday afternoon to discuss the status of orchards statewide.

Speaking from his experience this year, Ricker said some orchards are showing almost a patchwork of tree loss.

“There’s awful variation from orchard to orchard,” he said. “It depends on the soil. It depends on elevation. It depends on snow cover and water in the ground.”

The kill was hit or miss in terms of trees, too, Ricker added. Some mature trees were lost while some younger trees with less-developed root systems weathered the frost.

Ricker said he and his family will monitor the orchards into August, then decide on what steps they’ll take in terms of replanting.

“We usually like to let the ground regenerate for a while before planting new trees,” he noted.

Wallingford said more and more trees are showing signs of stress as time goes on.

“We’ll have plenty of fruit for the local market,” he said, but growers will have little added product to sell in the wholesale market or, as Ricker said, to ship abroad.

Wallingford said dwindling supply doesn’t mean apple prices will soar come harvest time.

Maine growers’ loss could represent a gain for growers elsewhere – New York and beyond – who will sell their fruit to buyers who normally would order Maine apples.

If it’s not one thing, it seems to be another when it comes to growing fruit here, said Wallingford. A couple of years ago, drought shrunk the harvest. A hailstorm at the wrong of time of the season, which happened a few years back, damages the crop to the tune of “$250,000 a minute” Wallingford said.

He said there’s little the state Department of Agriculture can do to help growers, except perhaps support federal legislation, if filed, that might provide subsidies or another form of payment. Even that would take several years, Wallingford said.

By the time any federal aid becomes available, some growers might be gone and their orchards subdivided for housing.

Over the past 30 years, he said, Maine has lost two-thirds of its orchards because growers couldn’t make a living producing apples.

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