We have been asked this year if the super cold winter, ie the Polar Vortex, has affected our apple orchard. 
Our answer – Yes.
The trees were already in a stressed state as the recovered from the heat and drought of the 2012 season.  The 2013 put stress on the trees because we had such a heavy crop.  And then the 2013/2014 began and brought with it the polar vortex. The stress of the polar vortex during the 2014 winter was the turning point for the trees.
As spring came, we could tell that we had lost trees from all the extreme weather of the past few years.  To date, we have pulled about 100 trees out that have died.  Some trees may not have been lost but we’ve had to remove a significant amount of dead branches.  We lost our entire crop of Valstar trees.  Jared is on the lookout to buy more but as of this year, we have zero Valstar apple trees left in our orchard.  Other varieties that were affected…Jonagold, Fuji, Braeburn (we actually lost all of these as well, but we just happened to plant more during the 2014 season so our next crop of these will produce in 3 years), golden delicious, sansa, snow sweet and idared. 
**Now, this may sound dire but please remember that we have about 3,000 apple trees in our orchard.  Things could be way worse than losing 100 of them.

Will this affect our 2014 apple season?
A little bit.  Obviously – we’ll be disappointing the valstar and braeburn lovers.  There was not a 100% loss on any of the other varieties though.  Some varieties will be a bit more slim than usual this year but I will do my best to keep you all posted on the newsletter, blog and facebook pages. 
At this point, I would also say it’s safe to say that our apple ripening dates are going to be just a bit behind the dates we list on our blog and website. 
We will be opening up for the season on Friday, August 15th.  Varieties that we’ll have available at the start of the season will be Paula Red, Idared, Zestar!, Duchess, William’s Pride, and Chenango Strawberry.
If you’re not on the email list…I highly recommend joining.  On Thursday’s, throughout apple season, I send out an email updating you on varieties and orchard happenings. 

Don’t want your inbox full?  Be sure to like AND FOLLOW Lapacek’s Orchard on Facebook!  I do my best to daily update you on what apples are on the shelves and what’s starting to run low… 
How do you ‘Follow’ Lapacek’s Orchard on Facebook?
Here is a screen shot of our Facebook Page.  Click on the ‘+ Follow’ button (I circled it in red).
Once your page has a check mark before the word Following – you will be following us!  By following us, we should turn up in your newsfeed regularly so it won’t be so easy to accidently miss your favorite apple variety!

I’d be happy to try to answer any of your questions about the orchard but honestly we’re all still learning.  The weather affected orchards all over Wisconsin as we found out at the annual Wisconsin Apple Grower Association Summer Field Day.  These extreme hot and cold weather years are something we haven’t seen in years, if ever, so close together.  Thanks so much for your continued support and we look forward to seeing you all during the 2014 apple season!