Fruit Trees for Prineville, Madras, Culver and Powell Butte, Oregon

In the December 1990 cold snap the Grizzly station, north of Prineville at 3,632 feet, bottomed out at −29°F, the Madras station at −24°F and Prineville at −16°F, while the Salt Creek station, nearly 2,800 feet higher than Prineville, stopped at −18°F. Height doesn't sort the cold out here. Where still air can collect does, and that's what decides fruit trees for Prineville, Madras, Culver and Powell Butte.

This map covers the north end of Central Oregon's High Desert, mostly in Crook and Jefferson counties, from the Prineville bowl and Powell Butte to Madras, the Agency Plains, Culver, Metolius, the Terrebonne bench and the back country out to Grizzly and Ashwood. Type your address in the box on the map to get the number for your own place, and the list of what we sell that has come through it.

How to read this map

The number on the map is the 30-year planning low, the number to plan for at that spot, and our cold hardiness calculator uses the same one, built from NOAA station records since the 1995-96 winter. It leans to the safe side, and it isn't the record. The MFTC zone is that number in half zones. "Typical winter" is an average year's coldest night, the kind of number USDA zones are built on. The spring layer shows how much warmer or colder a spot runs than downtown Prineville on a still, clear night at bloom.

Half the growing ground plans for −19°F to −15°F (all MFTC 5a), with the middle at −17°F. Downtown Madras at −21°F and the Grizzly locality at −22°F (both MFTC 4b) are the cold end. Ochoco Pointe at −14°F (MFTC 5b) and the warmest twentieth of the ground, at −13°F or better, are the warm end. Downtown Prineville, the reference point, plans for −16°F (MFTC 5a), with a typical winter around 0°F.

Why the map looks the way it does

This is rain shadow country, with about 300 sunny days a year. Dry air under a clear sky lets the ground throw off heat fast at night, so radiation frost runs the show, in January and again in June. The land is a stack of plateaus and basins from about 2,250 to 3,100 feet, cut by canyons that meet in Lake Billy Chinook at 1,945 feet, about 700 feet below Culver, and drain north to the Columbia. On a still night, where a canyon carries the cold off, the ground above stays milder. Where it's boxed in, it piles up.

Madras is the boxed-in case. The town sits in a round valley the settlers called The Basin, drained by Willow Creek, and downtown sits in the coldest tenth of the ground within 3 miles. The Madras station holds the coldest reading of any station here, −40°F on January 21, 1930, and ran colder than the Prineville station in 11 of the 12 biggest outbreaks in the NOAA records here (−34°F to −24°F in February 1933). A second station north of town, about 160 feet higher, runs 3°F warmer in the median year and read −15°F to the town station's −24°F in December 1990. A wide, shallow basin can pool harder than a deep valley that drains: the Pelton Dam station, at the dam in the Deschutes canyon about 800 feet below Madras, runs 8°F warmer than the Madras station on the year's coldest night.

Prineville is a bowl too, where Ochoco Creek, McKay Creek and the Crooked River meet on a floodplain ringed by rims of old gravel terraces capped with lava. Oregon's DEQ and the National Weather Service describe winter inversions that come back night after night, holding smoke downtown around Davidson Park. Yet in the December 1990 and December 2013 snaps the Prineville station read −16°F and −17°F while the Madras station read −24°F both times. It wasn't always so: in the January 1950 outbreak Prineville read −30°F and the Redmond airport −24°F, and in 2013 the airport read −27°F. We haven't found a published explanation for the switch. The planning low, built on records since 1995, follows the milder modern numbers.

Height helps only where the cold can drain away below you. The Haystack station, at 3,240 feet, gets 153 frost-free days and the Salt Creek station, up at 5,670 feet on the map's edge, 123, against 98 at the Prineville station and 96 at the Madras station. In the December 2013 snap Haystack read −13°F while the Redmond airport, about 190 feet lower, read −27°F. That fits a thermal belt. A Hungarian study of 69 clear, calm nights found a valley floor averaging 6.7°F colder than a slope 230 feet higher; that December 2013 gap was twice that. Grizzly breaks the rule the other way. Its station sits about 400 feet above Haystack yet runs 9°F colder in the median year. Position beats elevation.

Draws, which carry cold down through the benches, read cold too: Forest Crossing, in a draw east of Terrebonne, reads 7°F colder than downtown Prineville at bloom, the coldest spring reading of any named place on the map. The water doesn't help much. Much of Prineville Reservoir was iced over on January 25, 2023, Haystack Reservoir freezes thin in a cold winter, and Lake Billy Chinook lies in its canyon 700 feet below Culver. We haven't found anything showing any of them warms the ground around it. Snow is thin too (Prineville averages under 9 inches a year, Madras about 12), so roots often face the cold with little cover.

Some outbreaks hit everything about evenly (January 1950: Madras −31°F, Prineville −30°F, Grizzly −28°F). Calm, clear nights sort the cold by terrain instead, and that sorted pattern, the one bloom frost follows, is what the spring layer shows.

Prineville, the Ochoco Creek bowl and its rims

Downtown Prineville sits at about 2,875 feet, 10 feet above the local floor, where Ochoco Creek reaches the Crooked River. It plans for −16°F (MFTC 5a), typical winter around 0°F, and it's the zero line for the spring layer. The floor within 3 miles runs −16°F, and even the coldest tenth of all the ground around town only −17°F. Explorers found the lower floodplain thick with willows and waist-high grass ("Ochoco" is a Paiute word for willow), and grassy bottomland like that runs cold on frost nights: it's low, and tall grass keeps the soil's stored heat from reaching the air.

Higher ground is where Prineville gains. Bench ground within 3 miles, 100 to 700 feet above the floor, runs −14°F, and the warmest tenth of all the ground −13°F. Ochoco Pointe, under a mile northeast of downtown and about 90 feet above the floor, plans for −14°F (MFTC 5b), typical winter around 2°F, and reads 6°F warmer than downtown at bloom. For IronHorse at the foot of Barnes Butte, the West Hills, and Juniper Canyon and Prineville Lake Acres toward the reservoir, we don't have pinned points, so type your address in. A lot on a slope where the cold keeps sliding past usually lands nearer the bench numbers than the floor's.

Everything we sell except the Chicago Hardy Fig has come through colder than −16°F, so in Prineville bloom decides more than winter does. Put apples, tart cherries and bush fruit on the floor, and save the rims for apricots, peaches, sweet cherries, plums and pears. On the warmest rim lots, at −14°F, the Chicago Hardy Fig (−10°F) is worth a try a few feet from a south wall.

Powell Butte and the road to Redmond

Powell Butte, on OR 126 between Prineville and Redmond, is named for the Powell Buttes. The community point sits at 3,120 feet, about 250 feet above Prineville, yet plans 2°F colder: −18°F (MFTC 5a), typical winter around −2°F. What counts is height above the nearest low ground, and this point sits only 90 feet above its floor, in what the map reads as the cold pool between the two towns. At bloom it reads 2°F warmer than downtown Prineville, fair ground for Mount Royal plum and Summercrisp pear. The Bend, Redmond and Sisters map covers Redmond itself.

Madras, the Basin and the Agency Plains

Downtown Madras, at US 26 and US 97 with Willow Creek running through it, sits on the Basin floor at about 2,254 feet. It plans for −21°F (MFTC 4b), typical winter around −3°F, and runs even with downtown Prineville at bloom. Climb out and it changes fast: bench and slope ground 100 to 700 feet above the floor runs −16°F (MFTC 5a), and the warmest tenth of the ground within 3 miles −13°F. North of town lies the Agency Plains, a plateau about 10 miles long, dryland wheat first and seed crops later.

On the floor that means apples like Haralson and Frostbite, the Meteor tart cherry and bush fruit, with pears up on the slopes. Apricots, peaches and sweet cherries go on the best bench ground, where Debbie's Gold apricot and Veteran peach clear the cold with room.

Culver, Metolius and the Lake Billy Chinook rim

Culver, at about 2,631 feet on the floor south of Madras, was the first county seat, and it moved across the valley to the railroad when the tracks came through in 1911. It plans for −18°F (MFTC 5a), typical winter around 0°F, and reads 1°F colder than downtown Prineville at bloom; the floor within 3 miles runs −18°F and the bench ground −16°F. West of town the plateau breaks off into the canyons of Lake Billy Chinook and The Cove Palisades.

Metolius, between Culver and Madras, grew up around the Oregon Trunk Railroad's 1911 depot and roundhouse. Its town point sits 70 feet above the local floor and plans for −18°F (MFTC 5a), 1°F warmer than downtown Prineville at bloom, with the floor around it at −19°F and the benches at −17°F. An old NOAA station a mile west of town (1947 to 1992) read −29°F in both 1950 and 1957.

Opal City, between Terrebonne and Culver, sits on bench ground 150 feet above the floor and plans for −16°F (MFTC 5a). Around Culver and Metolius any apple on our list fits, along with Valiant and Concord grapes. Put plums and the early bloomers on your highest ground.

Terrebonne's bench and the draws toward Smith Rock

Terrebonne, on US 97 about 6 miles north of Redmond, is where this map meets the Bend, Redmond and Sisters map. The village point sits on a bench 130 feet above the local floor and plans for −17°F (MFTC 5a), typical winter around 0°F. It reads 6°F warmer than downtown Prineville at bloom, tied with Ochoco Pointe for the best spring reading of any named town or neighborhood on the map. East of Terrebonne the draws read cold: O'Neil plans for −20°F (MFTC 4b) and reads 3°F colder than downtown Prineville at bloom, and Forest Crossing −21°F and 7°F colder. That's a 13°F swing on a spring night within a few miles.

On June 15, 1916, the Crook County Journal reported that frost had killed most of the apples in F.T. Gardner's 750-tree orchard east of Terrebonne near Smith Rock, while the small fruit and berries looked fair. On the bench, Westcot apricot, Skeena sweet cherry and Pipestone plum fit. In the draws, stick with apples, tart cherries and bush fruit.

Grizzly, Ashwood, Gateway and the Grassland

Past the towns lie the Crooked River National Grassland and the Ochoco foothills. Grizzly, north of Grizzly Mountain at about 3,704 feet, plans for −22°F (MFTC 4b), typical winter around −5°F, the coldest planning low of any named place on the map. The Grizzly station, at 3,632 feet, holds a −32°F reading from January 8, 1937, and the shortest season of any station here: median last 32°F July 2, first fall 32°F August 24, 52 frost-free days, against 98 at the Prineville station. The spring layer reads the locality 4°F warmer than downtown Prineville, but it sees only the lay of the land; go by the station.

Ashwood, a ghost town on the Trout Creek bottom northeast of Madras, plans for −20°F (MFTC 4b). Gateway, down at 1,802 feet north of Madras, is the mild low end at −14°F (MFTC 5b). Up in the foothills sits the mildest named spot we checked: Boxcar Flats, on a bench 600 feet above its floor at 4,306 feet, plans for −12°F (MFTC 5b) and reads 10°F warmer than downtown Prineville at bloom.

Spring frost and bloom in Crook and Jefferson counties

NOAA station records for 1991 to 2020 give these medians:

• Prineville station (2,876 feet, about the height of downtown): last 32°F June 9, first fall 32°F September 14, 98 frost-free days, last 28°F May 10. One spring in ten the last 32°F comes after June 24.
• Madras station (2,285 feet, about 30 feet above downtown): last 32°F June 13, first fall 32°F September 19, 96 days, last 28°F May 22.
• Haystack station (3,240 feet): last 32°F May 12, first fall 32°F October 10, 153 days, last 28°F April 21.
• Pelton Dam station (1,484 feet, at the dam in the Deschutes canyon): last 32°F May 7, 154 days, last 28°F April 22.

Older published tables put Prineville's last frost weeks behind Madras's, but these 1991 to 2020 medians land four days apart on the last 32°F, and the Prineville station clears its last 28°F 12 days sooner. The bigger split is with Haystack, whose last 28°F comes nearly three weeks ahead of the Prineville station's. For bloom the 28°F date matters most, since open blossoms of apple, pear, cherry, peach, apricot and plum all start dying near 28°F (Michigan State Extension's figure).

The spring layer follows the same drainage. Ochoco Pointe and Terrebonne read 6°F warmer than downtown Prineville, Powell Butte 2°F and Metolius 1°F; downtown Madras and Opal City run even; Culver, Gateway and Ashwood run 1°F colder, O'Neil 3°F and Forest Crossing 7°F. That's a still, clear night. When a freeze comes in on a wind the benches won't be warmer, and Washington State's orchard people find inversions usually hold only while the wind stays under 3 to 5 mph.

The frosts that hurt come late. In October 2024 a Crook County grower told OSU's Ask Extension that 12 years on an irrigated one-acre hobby farm had brought mostly lost cherry, apple, apricot, plum, pear and peach crops, from unstable springs and late-June frosts. Site comes first; the FAO's frost manual calls it the single most important method of frost protection. Put apricots, peaches and sweet cherries on the highest, best-drained ground you have, with apples, haskap and bush fruit lower. OSU notes that west and south exposures push bloom earlier; by Bob Purvis's rule an east-facing slope, which warms quickly on a frosty morning, is ideal. OSU also suggests frost cloth over blossoms and young fruit from mid spring into early summer, and Alabama Extension's numbers are 0.5, 0.9 and 1.5 ounces per square yard buying about 4°F, 6°F and 8°F. Water a day or two before a frost night, mow short through bloom and don't till.

A frosted bloom isn't a lost crop. Minnesota's fruit people figure only about 15 percent of apple blossoms need to set, and fully open haskap flowers take 19°F. Our own rule: except for clustered fruit like cherries and grapes, most fruit can lose half its blossoms or more and you'll hardly notice. In the hard Montana bloom frost of spring 2026, our Red Lake and Montana Black Currants fruited well after their flower buds saw about 22°F, and raspberries, honeyberries, currants and gooseberries all came through fine.

What the weather records say

Other NOAA station records here: the old Warm Springs Agency station, down at 1,503 feet, −31°F (December 23, 1924, in a 15-year record, so low elevation is no shield), the Redmond airport −28°F (December 8, 1972), and Haystack, Board Hollow and Pelton Dam −15°F.

The biggest outbreak since 1995 came December 8, 2013: the Redmond airport −27°F, Madras −24°F, Grizzly −22°F, Prineville −17°F, Haystack −13°F and Pelton Dam −11°F. Cold that lands before trees finish hardening off, in October and November, kills at temperatures a January tree shrugs off, and the first fall 28°F at the Prineville and Madras stations comes around October 1 to October 3. We taper water from mid-August in zone 4 and colder (the Madras floor and the cold draws), and with first fall frosts at those stations in mid-September it's a good habit anywhere here. Skip late nitrogen and late-fall pruning too.

We haven't confirmed USDA's 2023 zones for these towns. Oregon State's Central Oregon gardening guide puts Prineville at zone 3 to 5 and Madras, Culver, Crooked River Ranch and Terrebonne at 4 to 5, and says to plant for your zone or one zone colder. USDA zones come from the average winter's coldest night, and NOAA station records show the worst night in about 30 winters runs a median 13°F below that.

What you can grow around Prineville and Madras

Our plants are rated to the coldest temperature each has actually come through, and nearly everything we sell has come through −25°F or colder, past the −12°F to −22°F the named places here plan for. Only the Chicago Hardy Fig (−10°F) clears none of it. So bloom frost and the short season do most of the sorting.

Rims, benches and the mild spots: −17°F or warmer

Ochoco Pointe and Prineville's rims, downtown Prineville, Terrebonne, Opal City, the bench ground around the Madras Basin, and Gateway. Even the −20°F plants like Santa Rosa plum and Flavortop nectarine have a few degrees of room. Early bloomers go only where the spring reading is good.

• Apricots: Westcot, Debbie's Gold, Sungold and Tomcot.
• Peaches: Contender (Tom McCamant grows it at Forbidden Fruit Orchard in Paradise, Montana, and it's the only commercial peach we know of that has taken −32°F), Blushingstar (−25°F at our place on January 13, 2024, no damage) and Veteran.
• Sweet cherries: Lapins and Gold, the hardiest sweet cherries we've found, and Rainier, which likes dry air (it cracks where it rains at ripening).
• Plums and pears: Toka with Superior (Toka is a good pollenizer for Superior; our pollination maps cover the rest), Italian, Seckel, D'Anjou and Luscious.
• Apples and nuts: any apple we sell, Cox Orange Pippin and Ashmead's Kernel included, and SnowCzar almond, an early bloomer, on warm ground.

Culver, Metolius, Powell Butte and the Madras floor: −18°F to −21°F

The −20°F group clears Culver, Metolius and Powell Butte at −18°F, but it's only worth a try on the Madras floor at −21°F, against a south wall given the station's −24°F in 2013. Everything below has come through −25°F or colder.

• Apples: Honeycrisp, Haralson, Wealthy, Frostbite, Zestar!® and Liberty.
• Cherries: Evan's Bali (good to at least −40°F to −45°F), Meteor, Montmorency and the Romeo dwarf cherry.
• Plums and pears, on your highest ground: Mount Royal and Stanley; Ure, Summercrisp and Flemish Beauty.
• Bush fruit and vines: Honeyberry, Montana Black Currant, Captivator gooseberry, Boyne raspberry and Valiant grape.

The cold draws and hollows: −20°F to −22°F, short seasons

Grizzly, Forest Crossing, O'Neil and the Ashwood bottom. Frost pockets shorten both ends of the season, so late apples, pears and grapes may not ripen.

• Applecrabs and apples: Kerr and Trailman (if you only plant one tree, make it one of these), Centennial (Ed Schultz saw zero winter injury on it after a winter that hit −47°F) and Norland.
• Bush fruit and cherries: Honeyberry, Montana Black Currant (we've never seen winter damage on it), Red Lake currant, Pixwell gooseberry, Serviceberry and Nanking Cherry.

Roots, soil and site

Roots are the weak link in a dry, thin-snow winter: dormant apple roots are seriously injured near 10°F while the wood above can take about −40°F. Bud 118 rootstock has seen near −50°F at Ed Schultz's farm in Gallatin Gateway, Montana, with no rootstock damage, but under snow. With as little snow as this country gets, mulch the roots and don't send trees into winter in bone-dry soil. Soils are mostly coarse and sandy with little organic matter, pH usually 6.0 to 7.0 and higher in places, so get a soil test, as OSU advises. Water with drip, the only irrigation we advise for fruit trees in dry country. Shelter from wind helps, but not a hedge across the downhill side, which dams cold air back into the trees. And rabbits have been trouble since at least 1916, when Otho Baker kept them off his 300 apple trees by rubbing the scent of dead rabbits on the trunks. Trunk guards are easier.

Fruit history here

This was cattle country first, on the bunchgrass from the 1870s, and water was always the struggle: a leaky private dam on Ochoco Creek in the early 1920s that Reclamation replaced in 1949, then Bowman Dam in 1961. Culver's founder, O.G. Collver, ran a fruit evaporator in western Oregon before he homesteaded here and opened the Culver store in 1900. Grapes have the best recent record: Oregon State's small farms program wrote in 2008 of about 125 hybrid and vinifera vines at the Matheny place in Madras and 3.5 acres of hybrids at the Ranch at the Canyons in Terrebonne, and of one Central Oregon grower whose Concord had borne 14 crops in 15 years. We haven't found a commercial orchard or fruit u-pick operating on this map today.

Questions people ask

What growing zone is Prineville, Oregon?

We plan downtown Prineville for −16°F, MFTC zone 5a, typical winter around 0°F, and Ochoco Pointe, 90 feet up off the floor, for −14°F (5b). Oregon State's Central Oregon gardening guide says zone 3 to 5. USDA's map is built on an average winter's coldest night, ours on the bad night.

What zone is Madras, Oregon?

Downtown Madras plans for −21°F, MFTC 4b, typical winter around −3°F, but the Madras station read −24°F in December 2013, so on the Basin floor plant what has come through −25°F or colder. The rims run about −16°F (5a). Oregon State says zone 4 to 5.

When is the last frost in Prineville?

NOAA station records for 1991 to 2020 put the Prineville station's median last 32°F at June 9, and one year in ten it comes after June 24. The last 28°F, where open blossoms start dying, comes around May 10, and the first fall 32°F around September 14.

Why does Prineville frost so late?

It's a valley floor. On clear, calm nights cold settles on the lowest ground, and Prineville sits in the bowl where Ochoco Creek, McKay Creek and the Crooked River meet. The floor stations all frost into June (the Prineville station June 9, the Madras station June 13), while the Haystack station, at 3,240 feet, has its median last 32°F on May 12. Ochoco Pointe, 90 feet up off the floor, reads 6°F warmer than downtown at bloom.

Can you grow peaches in Madras, Oregon?

Winter isn't the problem: Contender, Blushingstar and Veteran have come through −30°F, colder than anything the Madras station has recorded since 1995 (−24°F). Bloom frost is, with the station's median last 28°F around May 22. Put a peach on your highest bench ground, off the Basin floor, facing east if you can, and keep frost cloth handy.

Can you grow apples in Prineville?

Yes. Every apple we sell has come through −20°F or colder, and most −35°F or colder, past Prineville's −16°F planning low. Apples also forgive bloom frost, since only about 15 percent of the blossoms need to set. Honeycrisp, Zestar!®, Liberty and Haralson are all good picks for the floor.

Warmer spots, colder spots

Here's the number to plan for at named places on the map, warmest first. Each one is the 1-in-30-year low for that spot: the cold hardiness calculator's number from the same weather stations, sharpened by our microclimate model for the ground right there. Zone is our MFTC zone, set by that one bad night, not by an average.

The weather stations behind it

These are the long-record stations in and around this map, with each one's own numbers since the winter of 1995-96. The last column is this map's 30-year number right at the station, which won't match the station exactly: it's a blend of the stations around it, the way the calculator works everywhere.

Source: NOAA records through ACIS, winters 1995-96 through 2025-26. What the "carried forward," "gaps filled" and AWOS rows mean is explained in how our microclimate maps work.