New York farmers are looking for federal help after hailstorms battered young fruit and vegetable crops in at least 15 counties on Monday.

Agriculture Commissioner Patrick Hooker was assessing damage in hard-hit Wayne, Orleans and Genesee counties Wednesday and Thursday after the storms pummeled apples, strawberries, corn and other crops with hail as large as golf balls.

Damage “ranges from little dings in the fruit to actual holes you could put your thumb into,” said Mark James, executive director of the New York Farm Bureau's Finger Lakes office.

The farm bureau, along with U.S. Rep. James Walsh, urged Gov. David Paterson to ask the federal government to designate the affected counties as disaster areas, making them eligible for recovery funds.

Grower Phil Wagner told reporters he may have lost 75 percent of his cherry and peach crops and about a third of the apples in his orchard in Wayne County. He described his fruit as “smashed and bruised like they were hit with a baseball bat.”

Statewide, at least one-third of the apple crop was affected, Farm Bureau spokesman Peter Gregg said. New York ranks second nationally in apple production. More than 30 million bushels were harvested last fall.

Apples that had been destined for retail sale, now dented and blemished, will fetch lower prices from juice and applesauce processors, Gregg said. Apples with torn skin will rot and fall off the trees.

Although the processing market is strong, Gregg said, consumer demand for eating apples is the highest it has been in years.

“That's what's very disappointing,” he said. “We're looking at the best marketplace we've seen in a generation and we've just seen our supply seriously affected by this storm.”

Sen. Charles Schumer is asking the U.S. Department of Agriculture to help tally the losses to see whether a disaster declaration is warranted.

This year's federal farm bill includes a new compensation program for lost crops in disaster areas but farmers are not able to enroll for the program because regulations have yet to be written. The state farm bureau is pressing the congressional delegation to speed that process.

“Many of my constituents have told me that they lost more than 75 percent of their crops - a catastrophic loss,” Schumer wrote to Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer.

The losses come at a time of escalating expenses for growers: the price of fertilizer has doubled in a year and fuel costs continue to rise. Labor shortages only add to the stress.

“This could not have come at a worse time for farmers,” James said.

As of Wednesday, growers in 15 counties reported damage, though the dollar amounts had not yet been tallied. They are: Albany, Columbia, Dutchess, Erie, Greene, Monroe, Orange, Orleans, Putnam, Rensselaer, Rockland, Schoharie, Ulster, Wayne and Westchester

“There may be more damage than we know of at this point,” James said.

Larry Meyer, Farm Service Agency director in Orleans County, said farmers are hopeful onions grown in the mucklands of Orleans and Genesee counties will rebound after having leaves knocked of and ripped, making them vulnerable to bacteria.

About half of the 5,000 acres of muck were hard hit, said Christy Hoepting, a vegetable specialist with Cornell Cooperative Extension.

“We'll know in two weeks if we have crop loss,” she said. “I don't think anyone has thrown in the towel.”