Freeze good for crops?

Most of the time, an overnight freeze this time of year really puts a scare into local fruit growers. Too much cold, as we saw last spring, can wipe out an entire season's worth of produce.

But when Tuesday morning temperatures dipped into the 20s, Mother Nature actually did farmers a favor. It thinned out some of the weaker fruit, allowing the remainder to mature.

Bob Hall, owner of Bush-N-Vine farm outside of York, told me the cold this time around was good for his strawberries. He needed to thin out some of the crop so the rest would grow big and juicy. Too many berries on each plant means smaller fruit. And miniature strawberries don't influence customers to buy an extra gallon bucket of berries. They want the big ones.

Same thing for peaches. Growers often knock up to 30 percent of their fruit off the tree before it matures to ensure the other fruit gets all the nutrients it needs to grow fat and juicy.

This is just another example of how farming is one of the most unique businesses in the world. Local growers spent Monday night praying their acreage would survive. Tuesday morning, their prayers were answered, and then some. Mother Nature not only spared their crops, she also did them a big favor, by pruning some of the weaker fruit.

For the rest of the business world, this makes no sense. I can't think of a single industry outside of agriculture, where destroying a company's product is good for business.