Robert Cordtz peers closely at a pink blossom, gently holding the limb that is just beginning to sprout leaves.

He is looking to see if the flower is viable, if it will result in a rosy peach come summertime.

But he doesn’t know yet — and won’t know until he sees if fruit sets on the trees of Eagle Creek Orchard, which he owns with his wife, Linda.

“See that little flower? Right now they should be covered in blossoms,” Linda says, pointing to a peach tree where only one flower blooms high on a branch.

Across the peach block, she can see one flower here, one flower there — just one or two, and sometimes none, per branch.

The couple bought this orchard near Richland 12 years ago, and took it through the process to become certified organic with Oregon Tilth.

Robert suspected their fruit crop would suffer this season when the temperature dipped to 15 below zero in January, rare cold for the Eagle Valley, which at 2,100 feet (1,300 feet lower than Baker Valley) typically is warmer than most places in Baker County.

“It was quite the winter — we had two feet of snow,” Linda said.

And peach trees, she said, are a bit of a “princess” fruit tree that doesn’t like cold.

“You can kill a peach tree at 20 below,” she said.

The gray, cool spring added to the problem.

“The weather was terrible for pollinators — cold, windy and wet,” she said.

Robert estimates that only 200 of the 700 peach trees will bear fruit.

“It’s not total, but it’s a bummer,” he said.

Due to the drastically reduced yield, they won’t be selling at any farmers markets this summer, and cancelled their CSA programs.

They do, however, plan to have some fruit at Bella Main Street Market and the Baker Food Co-op, as well as at the orchard -— although they ask that customers call ahead for availability.

Waiting And Watching

While the Cordtzes are hopeful for their other crops — apricots, plumcots, prunes, cherries, pears, apples and Asian pears — only time will tell how much fruit will set on the trees.

“They may be OK. It’s hard to tell,” Robert said.

One good aspect to the winter was that temperatures were very cold over an extended period of time.

“It had been so cold for so long they had been hardened off,” Linda said of the apple trees.

In the block of Asian pears, most branches have enough fruit forming that the Cordtzes anticipate thinning as normal. (To ensure enough space and air flow for fruit to grow, most trees are aggressively thinned.)

But even among the Asian pears, as Robert and Linda look close, the trees seem to be thinning themselves — a cluster grows one strong fruit and the smaller ones fall off with a light touch.

Robert said in a typical year, they will thin out about 90 percent.

“This year Mother Nature did 98 percent,” he said.

See more in the May 8, 2017, issue of the Baker City Herald.