|
| I've seen nearly half a dozen posts recently from people gearing up for freezing weather while their fruit trees are in/past/or near bloom. These threads only last a day or two until the weather event in question arrives...
I'm looking for some followup...
|
Follow-Up Postings:
|
| Depending on which weather report you believe, the low here was either 28 or 26. The forecasts were even more wildly divergent. I'd say I lost about 1/4 of the apriums on my most advanced tree. That, so far, is the greatest extent of damage I've been able to tell. Asian plums seem to have survived, and a good number of the sweet cherries out of the shuck. Pears are good. Strawberries don't show damage. |
|
| We had several nights with forecasted and actual weather going as low as 27. My terrain is hilly with lots of wind-breaks (many microclimates) and the dew point lower on all but one night than the temp. My fruit trees were in all stages of development from bloom bud to petal drop. Most at this point look unscathed, but I'll have to check the ovules on a few trees to be sure. Depending on stage of development, and how long the temp stayed at the low points, there can be drastically different outcomes as to fruiting. Mine have the most profuse number of flowers I can ever remember, so even if I have some percentage of fruit loss, (and no more severe cold happens down the line) I should have a good harvest. Perhaps losing some fruit with that many potential fruits might even be a blessing to thin them out. BTW I know the temps varied wildly on different parts of the property. The grapes half the buds where leaves and clusters were starting were burnt to a nub and half totally fine with no sign of burn. The lilacs were fine, both flower and leaf. The magnolia some were zapped, some not. The strawberry beds I had moved to raised beds a year ago and those I did take the time to frame up and cover and they look super! Loaded with big, fat white blooms and bloom buds. |
|
| Well, our coldest night so far after the extraordinary March warmth was a few nights ago... I live almost exactly equidistant between two weather reporting stations. Both of them dropped to around or just slightly above 28 degrees, about 28.2 -28.4. We had our heaviest frost that night, and the trees themselves were all frozen. I don't see any more damage to them than I did before. There are some frozen blooms with black centers on all types of trees, but the majority of blooms are ok, and so far, I'd say I'm going to have a crop of some kind this year. Time will tell. I think the bigger problem post-warmth here is the fact that once it got warm and brought everything out into full bloom, with the exception of apples and E. pears which for the most part are still buds, is the fact that most days temps have only gotten into the upper 40's, and it hasn't been conducive to pollination. |
|
- Posted by konrad___far_north 3..just outside of E (My Page) on Sat, Apr 14, 12 at 13:23
| Just to show you what temps. we have to deal in some years. I have seen -12C. / 10F in May, [flowering time].. some trees will be dead. |
|
- Posted by franktank232 z5 WI (My Page) on Sat, Apr 14, 12 at 13:47
| I'd say a small percentage of the apricots were destroyed (10 to 20%)...other then that I'm not seeing any damage. I really won't know until another few weeks. I pruned back my apricots heavily today, so that removed part of this years crop. I hit anywhere between 26F to 28F...but if anything, we didn't stay at 26F for very long...most of the night was spent in the upper 20Fs... |
|
| 18F here this a.m.... |
|
| We've been down to 20F on numerous occasions while many of my trees have been somewhere between tight and loose cluster. Miraculously, it seems that many of my apples are still OK. I think I probably lost all of the Japanese plums and all of the Asian pear blossoms. I THINK that some of the European plums are OK and I think my sour cherries are still OK. It was just a tremendous blast of cold weather, night after night after night. Of course, we were weaks ahead of normal in our bloom time which explains most of it. I'm just hopeful that some of my fruit may have survived. We've got overcast and warmer weather forecast for the next week or so, which is a relief. |
|
- Posted by fabaceae_native (My Page) on Mon, Apr 16, 12 at 13:27
| Well, I better give my own update now, so as not to be hypocritical...:) The moral of the story below is that even under two opposite scenarios of cold weather (advection frost with prolonged subfreezing temps versus a brief radiation frost) the fruit trees were largely unharmed by the mid to high 20's. -- SATURDAY NIGHT: low of 27F at my house, right on the nose with the National Weather Service Forecast for my area. It was cold and windy all night, and below freezing from about 7pm Sat until 9am Sunday, a very long period. There was even a thin layer of ice on some rainwater in a bucket on the south side of the house. The extent of the damage (peach, plum, pear, cherry, and apple in bloom) seems to be a few blackened new leaves on the mulberries, and a lot of droopy new growth on lilacs, maples, etc... that perked up during the day. The long-range forecast shows predominantly lows in the 40's from now on, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we'll have some fruit this year... |
|
- Posted by theaceofspades 7 Long Island (My Page) on Mon, Apr 16, 12 at 17:33
| We reached 29 degrees once during fruit tree flowering time. Unfortunately this did not have an effect. And it has been dry, so virtually every flower has fruit so lots of thinning to do this spring. The good news is that all hard to pollinate stone fruits have set well. |
|
| My Asian pears and peaches seem to have survived the weather just fine. Pear blossoms are not yet fully opened, but the peaches are. I am not certain the coldest temp, but there was a light frost on the ground. I am not convinced my temps were as low as forcasted. Apples are just hitting a hint of red. Seem to be OK so far. |
|
- Posted by Randy31513 Georgia 8b (My Page) on Tue, Apr 17, 12 at 17:55
| I went back and checked my weather station. 18.5F in full bloom. All open or nearly open blooms died but the tree put on about 10% more blooms. I should have apples by middle of June. |
Please Note: Only registered members are able to post messages to this forum. If you are a member, please log in. If you aren't yet a member, join now!
Return to the Fruit & Orchards Forum
Instructions
- You must be a registered member and logged in to post messages on our forums.
- Posting is a two-step process. Once you have composed your message, you will be taken to the preview page. You will then have a chance to review the contents and make changes.
- After posting your message, you may need to refresh the forum page in order to see it.
- It is illegal to post copyrighted material without the owner's consent.
- HTML codes are allowed in the message field only.
- No advertising is allowed in any of the forums.
- If you would like to practice posting or uploading photos, please visit our Test forum.
- If you need assistance, please Contact Us and we will be happy to help.