CLYDE, Ohio — A century-old orchard is starting to become a fruitful business, but its farmers fear an imminent auction of the leased property may deal its final blow.

J&M Fruit Farm is expecting that this year’s harvest will be its last after it was notified that the owners of the property, Fremont-based Sunrise Cooperative, would not be renewing their lease. Soon after, the cooperative began advertising an auction for about 44 acres of the orchard’s land, billed for use as a potential building site, tillable cropland, or continued use as an orchard.

Property deeds obtained by the farm operators show that the land has been used as an orchard since 1923, when Harry Russell began planting apple trees on the land. It later became Starlite Orchard in the 1930s when it was owned by the Taylor family, then Eshleman Fruit Farm when Richard and Betty Eshleman bought the property in 1988.

The Eshlemans sold their property to Sunrise in 2021 but continued farming the property for about a year with a lease agreement. James Durst, a farmer with experience in farming row crops near Kansas, Ohio, decided to take over the lease in March, 2022. He said the farm looked great on paper, and he hoped the longstanding reputation as a family-run orchard would be a valuable asset with a little bit of work.

“I had experience with family row crops over in Kansas, and this financially came out correctly so it should have done everything right, everything was supposed to be working, and it was not when I got here,” Mr. Durst said.

Stephanie Lacer, her daughter Vic Lakin, and her stepson David Lacer started working at the farm throughout the year, helping Mr. Durst bring it back into fruitful condition

“When we took over, it was iffy, and we’ve done a lot of work. A lot of the trees weren’t taken care of properly for the past few years, so cleaning all that up and fixing them until we got bumper crops going,” Ms. Lacer said.

Soon after Mr. Durst began leasing the farm, the team started to look more like family than co-workers. Things were finally starting to turn around for the orchard, Mr. Durst said, and the 2025 season was expected to be the first time the farm made a profit rather than just breaking even.

However, the farm was notified in February that Sunrise Cooperative would not be renewing the lease for another year, making the 2025 season its last. A pending legal challenge by the farm based on terms of the lease might extend that closing date another year, but the uncertain future still looms.

A request for comment to Sunrise Cooperative was referred to the company’s lawyers, who did not respond.

Apples from the farm are distributed across the state of Ohio — the owners say schools in Sandusky County, as well as schools in the cities of Maumee and Sylvania purchase their apples. They also supply apples to Future Farmers of America chapters in seven counties for fund-raisers, about 100 fruit stands and farmers market vendors, and to a distribution partner in Columbus.

Ms. Lacer also said that people cross state lines to buy apples at the farm. One couple traveled from Chicago to the orchard in search of Fuji apples, saying that the apples grown in the region taste most similar to the apples grown in Japan. She also said older adults enjoyed using their food assistance benefits to shop for produce at the farm.

Yields were increasing year over year, and the team was hoping to start hosting field trips for nearby schools, expand their products to include sparkling apple ciders and apple doughnuts, and begin exchanging varieties with other orchards to expand the products they carried.

“A lot of people in the community were glad to see that with us taking it over, we were fixing it, and we were doing stuff, because they were afraid that this exact thing was going to happen and it would be gone,” Ms. Lacer said.

They currently farm 150 acres of land, producing apples, plums, peaches, and asparagus. Apples make up their largest harvest, and Ms. Lacer said she had no idea how big the orchard was before working there. None of the staff is sure what will happen over the next year, but it’s clear to them that their time is limited.

“We’re planning for the worst but hoping for a miracle. We really don’t want to see this go. We all love working here,” Ms. Lacer said.

First Published March 21, 2025, 5:37 p.m.