Cold Temperatures Put New England Crops In Jeopardy

TYNGSBOROUGH (CBS) - The sun shines in April over snow blanketed crops.

"When I hear the weatherman say we will be close to record cold that kind of makes us nervous."

After farming for four-and-a-half decades, Parlee Farms owner Mark Parlee has harvesting down to a science.

"I'm getting 90 percent injury at 15 degrees," said Parlee.

Parlee Farms has 94 acres of crops. Two of them which represents peaches has already been destroyed. Farmers here hope that temperatures don't also injure the 15 acres of apples.

The farm has 20 varieties of apples. It's Parlee's largest revenue generator.

"Apple is our biggest crop. So right now, just about every farmer in Massachusetts who has apples, has his fingers crossed," he says. His fear is losing all of his Galas.

"We're at the threshold of getting some serious damage, we're hoping to squeak by," he says.

Parlee told WBZ that as long as temperatures stay high enough to allow crops to grow out of its buds safely, his crops will survive.

"Out of the five buds on this distance of a branch, I probably only want one apple to fully grow and stay."

There are odds he hopes will pan out. He plans to check on them again within the next few days.

"We'll start pulling apart these buds and seeing if instead of green in the middle, if it's brown in the middle, it won't turn into an apple and it will probably fall off. Having close to full crop is what we're hoping for."