DEERFIELD, Mass. - Clarkdale Fruit Farms owner Ben Clark said it's been a cold and wet start to the season for the Deerfield farm but it's not necessarily a bad thing.

"For us, we don't really worry so much about the cold right now," said Clark. "The temperature in the 30s is OK. It slows the trees down a little bit which is what we prefer so they don't get too far ahead and then have more potential of frost." 

Clark said rain does pose more of a challenge, preventing them from getting some of the early season work completed, and presenting a concern when it comes to potential diseases. 

"Even with our trees- since we're all apples, peaches, pears, plums, pears, grapes," he said. "We have the roots in the ground just sitting in water and that causes a lot of issues in terms of fungal, pathogens, that we had to deal with last year."

Clarkdale Fruit Farms has been family-owned for four generations and produces fruits like apples and peaches.

Clark said last year saw record numbers for the amount of rainfall in Massachusetts which caused several farms to suffer severe damage and in some cases a total loss as a result.

In his case, it was the late season frost and freeze which caused the most harm.

"All of our peach buds got killed off," he said. "The trees were fine. The trees survived, and that was first event, and then in May we had another deep frost event and that was during and after bloom and we actually lost 70% of our apples and pears."

It was a rough year, but Clark said the business was able to stay float partly due to the $120,000 in disaster relief funds he received from the state.

And while they're some concerns moving forward about the wet weather, Clark says he's staying optimistic for a better harvest than last year.

"We're doing the best we can," he said.  "We did buy some equipment to mitigate some of the frost issues and we're expanding our frost sprinklers and irrigation. That's sort of what you have to do. You have to be ready to meet any extreme weather that comes your way.