EMMETT, Idaho — Gem Orchards owner Lance Phillips likes how his crops look so far this season, but is not celebrating just yet.

“Apricots look good,” he said April 9, about two weeks after the U-pick orchard’s first-to-bloom, most frost-susceptible crop bloomed. “We lose apricots one out of three years without fail and we’ve got a full crop.”

Cherries and peaches “are in full bloom now and the weather has been advantageous” for the crops and for pollination, Phillips said. Apple and pear bloom wasn’t expected for another 10 days.

Gem’s tree fruits are making the most of a string of warm, sunny days that followed recent short-duration rains that came mostly from due west and thus weren’t too cold.

“We’ve seen mild days with good moisture, and nights that haven’t cooled as quickly — which supports good growth and steady growth and pollination,” Phillips said. “We have had three to four days of warm weather and tomorrow (April 10) is going to be perfect.”

“It doesn’t mean things couldn’t change,” he said.

Phillips, like many orchardists this time of year, is at risk of crop loss caused by nighttime temperatures dropping to a damage threshold and then persisting or — worse — dropping further.

Soil moisture and the supply of irrigation water are good, and “so far we’ve seen mild days, and nights that haven’t cooled as quickly, which supports good growth and steady growth,” he said.

Nights that are cool but not too cold have reduced the risk of crop loss and provided a head start on the next day’s growth in that soil does not have to warm as much to reach ideal temperature, Phillips said.

The lack of a hard frost in the past several weeks helped his crops avoid damage and continue to make progress, he said.

Last winter brought good snowpack and temperatures, Phillips said.

“We had a nice, cold winter,” he said. “We had steady, cold temperatures and not a lot of fluctuations that were waking plants too early.”

Winter temperatures were low enough to reduce pest pressure — slightly normal for now — but not so low that it damaged buds, fruit and wood, Phillips said.

Crop progress is similar to that of a year ago and “right on schedule” compared to long-term averages, he said. Crops as of early to mid-April were on schedule in 2024, and about two weeks behind in 2023 in a wet, cold spring that kept soil temperatures low.

Last year’s final spring frost was April 30. Spring frost risk in the Emmett area typically ends around May 9 or May 10.

“Things could change,” Phillips said. “And we could get wind, hail, etc. Until the day the fruit comes off the tree and someone pays me for it, we’re not out of the doghouse.”