‘A punch to the gut’: Cold snap leaves Utah fruit farmers reeling
Apr 20, 2026, 3:30 PM | Updated: Apr 21, 2026, 11:43 am
Peaches are a popular fruit for Utahns to grow, but they need a lot of care. (Taun Beddes)
(Taun Beddes)
SALT LAKE CITY — Utah’s mid-April cold snap has had dire consequences for local farmers: the operations manager of Manning Orchards, in Fruit Heights, said his fruit trees won’t yield a single fruit this year.
“I can’t find a single good peach out there. And that’s our main thing is peaches. We do some cherries, those are frozen. We do some apricots, those are frozen. We do some apples, those are frozen. We do some pears, those are frozen,” Chris Healey said. “So it’s across the board, everything’s frozen for us this year.”
Healey said he had a knot in his stomach on Thursday night as he knew just a few degrees would make the difference between an early yield and total crop failure. He said that anything colder than 26 degrees, even for just half an hour, could have a serious impact on fruit.
Healy woke up to 24.8 degrees — a number like a “punch to the gut,” he said — and it was all gone.
“I went out there yesterday to look — you pop them open and break them up inside, which usually is green, bright green, even white in the center — it turned totally black,” Healy said. “The whole trees are like that, we have over 1,200 peach trees. And yeah, they’re all black.”
Healey said this is not completely unheard of, and it’s the third time it’s happened since his grandfather began to track the yield in the early 70’s. He did say, however, that this year is the earliest bloom they had ever seen, which left the crop vulnerable to the cold.
“(The peaches) were about pea size, you know, slightly bigger some already, which is pretty crazy to be that far ahead of the year,” Healy said. “So we were hoping with that far advancement in the peach-lets that we would withstand some cold, but they get the cold as hard as we did. That, like I said, was more of a gut punch, like ‘Wow, we were almost there.'”
Healy already works a night job in addition to his duties at Manning Orchards. He said after this, there’s no telling whether he’ll have to get a third job to support his family.
Still, he said his farm would be alright; the trees themselves survive the cold even if their fruit doesn’t. Manning Orchards would be on standby until 2027, Healy said.
A GoFundMe* was set up to help keep the small family farm running in the meantime.
Healey said they will weather the storm, but there’s a challenging year ahead for Utah’s fruit farmers.
*KSLNewsRadio does not assure that the money deposited to the account will be applied for the benefit of the persons named as beneficiaries. If you are considering a deposit to the account, you should consult your own advisors and otherwise proceed at your own risk.
