Brian Nearing of the Times-Union writes about local farmers worried that warm December weather poses a risk to their crops. Growers say trees, tricked by a warm December after an unusual winter blast in late November, are showing growth at the buds. Ed Miller, the president of 75-acre Gold Orchards, tells the paper there is no going back if an apple tree starts budding off too early. "A tree can decide that it is spring again already and start budding. When it gets cold again, it kills the bud, and you can lose an entire crop," he said. But Ian Merwin, a professor of horticulture at Cornell University, says it's too early to tell whether this mild, snowless start to winter will damage the state fruit harvest. He said an oscillation between unusually warm and normally cold temperatures poses the greatest risk, and that such a pattern is predicted in climatic models used to forecast the direction of man-made climate change. "It is not just how cold it gets; it is whether it was unusually warm before that," Merwin said. Another crop that could be at risk from this winter's lack of snow is alfalfa, which is prime feed for dairy cattle. Snow acts as an insulating blanket to protect field crops like alfalfa. Temperatures could bottom out to 4 degrees Thursday night before rebounding to overnight lows in the mid-20s for the weekend. Highs are expected to be just below freezing through Saturday, when clouds gather and the mercury hits 46. Sunday could see a combination of rain and snow, with the high near 37, and the low near 21. Read the full story in the Albany Times-Union.