Delmarva Farmer: Deep overnight freeze severely damages fruit operations in region

MT. AIRY, Md. — Sarah O’Herron knew something was wrong before she got out of the car.
She and her husband Ed had driven from their home in Silver Spring to their Clarksburg vineyard early on the morning of April 21, after their vineyard manager called to say it looked bad. As they pulled in, the evidence was already visible from the driveway.

“These vines should be good,” O’Herron said. “And they’re just not.”

May 01, 2026
By Jonathan Cribbs

O’Herron is co-owner of Black Ankle Vineyards in Mount Airy, one of the largest grape growers in Maryland with nearly 240,000 vines across three farms. What she found that morning — and at every farm she visited afterward — was the same: shoots that had been green and upright just days before were drooping, pale, then blackening.

“They just look so sad,” she said. “They just immediately droop over.”

The freeze that struck the region overnight April 20-21, with temperatures falling into the mid-20s and staying there for hours, has left growers of grapes, peaches, strawberries, blueberries, apples and other specialty crops assessing what could be one of the most damaging late-season frost events in a generation.

The damage stretches from Pennsylvania to Virginia and into Delaware, hitting operations large and small at the worst possible moment — just after an unusually warm March had coaxed crops weeks ahead of their normal schedules.

The conditions that made this freeze so destructive were set weeks in advance. After an unusually warm March pushed vines and fruit trees into early growth, crops across the region were significantly further along than normal — and far more vulnerable.

The larger a grapevine bud grows, the less cold-tolerant it becomes. In a normal April, a bud hit by a cold snap might survive. This year, the vines had been growing as if it were May.

“The forecast never hit what actually happened,” she said. Her neighbors measured 24 degrees — eight below freezing — well below the worst forecast, which called for a low of 31. And the cold didn’t lift quickly. “It was below 30 by midnight, and then it was cold.”

At Boordy Vineyards in Hydes, vineyard manager Ron Wates said his crew had already lost about 10 percent of the crop in a smaller freeze 10 days earlier.

“We can recover from that,” he said.

This time was different. Boordy ran fans through the night and sprayed copper to fight ice-nucleating bacteria, saving a block of chardonnay at the highest elevations. Still, Wates estimates losses of 75 to 80 percent. His boss has been growing grapes for 60 years and has never seen anything like it.
“It’s once in a lifetime,” he said.

Vineyards were not the only operations hit. Across the region, peach and apple orchards, strawberry fields, blueberry farms and other specialty crop operations reported significant damage. The UMD Extension office in Montgomery County warned that damaged blossoms mean nothing to harvest later, even if the plant itself survives, and told consumers to expect reduced availability of local fruits, potential price increases and more variability in what makes it to market.

In Delaware, Henry Bennett of Bennett Orchards offered a cautiously optimistic report. His crew ran wind machines from 1 a.m. to 6:30 a.m., keeping his 2020 peach orchard block above 30 degrees.

“We were able to protect pretty much all of our 2020 peach orchard,” he said in a video to the orchard’s Facebook followers. His blueberries remain uncertain until harvest in June. “Like anything with farming, time will tell.”

At Deep Run Farms in Hampstead, Md., Greg Horner is looking at losses across nearly everything he grows. He estimates 80 percent of his peaches are gone, along with 30 percent of his strawberries and all of his sweet corn. He tried frost protection spray — a fertilizer applied 30 hours before the freeze — and lit fires in the orchard. Neither helped.

“It got too cold too long,” he said, adding that the spray “didn’t work. It was probably snake oil, but whatever.”

Sweet corn he can replant. Peaches are another matter. He’s planning to grow more pumpkins and vegetables in the fall to offset what he can.

“I’ve never lost peaches like this before,” he said. “Time will tell, but I’m not very optimistic that there’s going to be a ton.”

For O’Herron, the damage is a three-year problem. White wines won’t show the gap until 2027; reds push the timeline further. She estimates the lost grapes would eventually have translated to $6-7 million dollars in wine sales. Black Ankle has stockpiled inventory and believes it can survive without immediately buying outside fruit — but the ripple effects are already visible. Six or seven workers who were scheduled to arrive were sent home. Wates at Boordy finds himself hunting for tasks.
“Normally we’d be out in the field,” he said. “But we don’t have anything to work on.”

The Maryland Department of Agriculture has directed affected growers to contact their local Farm Service Agency offices. O’Herron said Black Ankle has already reached out, and that damage surveys are coming in from the Maryland Wineries Association, Maryland Farm Bureau and extension offices at Penn State and Cornell.

But she keeps coming back to the growers with no cellar to draw down, no vintage to stretch across years.

“I think the fruit growers that sell just fruit that they’re picking out of the ground and taking to the market. That’s devastating,” she said. “It is way worse. We are definitely in better shape than a lot of people.”