LOWELL, Mich. — Cold snaps happen often this time of year.
"It's something where if you live in Michigan, you just have to deal with the weather," said Aaron Roth, owner of Railside Orchards in Lowell.
On Tuesday night, Roth started a gigantic fire in the middle of his orchard.
"The fire warms the air, pushes it straight up really fast and it creates kind of a wind tunnel down through here," he says.
That warm air is moved through the area using a gigantic fan. The fan acts like an air conditioner in your home, pulling down warm air from higher up so that the cold air doesn't settle around the trees.
And the method works.
"It got to 22 degrees in this valley last year and that should've been a 100 percent kill," said Roth. "But we had a full crop."
It worked Tuesday night, too. Roth only found minimal damage in the morning when checking the buds on his trees. And even though apple season is still months away, keeping those buds intact now is key to a successful crop.
"If you don't have buds you don't have fruit," said Roth.
With more cold temps on the way, Roth doesn't think it will get cold enough to light the fire again, but he will turn the fan back on.
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