I’m far from sanguine at this point. Apricots are showing a lot of flower damage- at my site I’m not sure if any not near walls of my house are viable. At other sites it’s hit and miss. J. plums seem normal but, strangely, I’m not at all sure about E. plums- maybe I’m just jumpy but it seems like a lot of buds are fried. Peaches and apples appear normal and if we get a good crop of those I won’t complain about any other disappointments.
Wow. FD was my first bloomer. February 26th if I remember correctly. It promptly got frozen out. Probably not worth me having. Luckily it’s only a single graft.
It’s usually an April Fool’s bloomer for me
Apricots and J Plums/pluots all seem hit or miss for me. I was checking them out today and it looks like most have at least some live flowers (as best as I can tell). Autumn Glo, a late season, low chill apricot looks to have lost all it’s flowers. But everything else seems at least partially OK. Maybe just a bit less thinning will be needed.
Here’s an example which shows some dead blooms, right next to some which are swelling up with white.
The apricot bloom seems a bit spread out- the following trees are within 15 feet of each other:
Mirsanjeli Late- almost done flowering
Gold Cot- mid-bloom
Montrose- almost ready to open first flower
My cots are fried but everything later appears to be OK. Maybe I need to try to grow an apricot in a relatively shady spot.
Get a Hoyt Montrose or Zard. They did better than my J plums this year. I have most of the Zard and 20% of the Montrose.
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Got any zard wood?
Is Zard=Canadian White Blenheim? Almost ordered one…
My Starks Bros white (Twocot) has yet to bloom. Looks like it will be a solid week or better behind Puget gold.
Not this year but I will next year. I was also going to send you some Reine de Mirabelles… next spring!
Alan
What cots are you growing that got toasted? Reason why I ask is that I’m only around 100mi. or so due east of you give or take and thought that we have similar climates. Today I just recorded first bloom for Harglow, Tomcot and Hesse Plumcot.
Tomcot is the only of those I have here. Not much flower bud life on it.
My Tomcot doesn’t look great either. A few flower buds on it…while Puget Gold (which its grafted to) is loaded. Could be the location on the tree (south side of the tree)…not sure.
I said I’d be pleased just to get peaches, E. plums, apples, nects and pears and, so far, that looks like mostly it. Shiro, Great Yellow, Flavor Grenade and Early Majic have viable buds but many of my tastiest varieties have dead brown flower buds (Satsuma, Santa Rosa, Ruby Queen). Same deal at many sites better located than mine.
Shiro is once again the most reliable survivor of J.plums. Apricots only made it at the best sites (this includes a wide range of varieties, including most Harrow selections), but I may get a small crop from Alfred growing against my wall as I left a lot of short annual shoots where most surviving flower buds are- flower buds on older spurs apparently developed earlier and were vulnerable to cold snaps in mid-Feb. In the future I won’t prune cots until after petal fall (or at bloom). Of peaches, it appears Flavor May was largely destroyed. Gold Dust and Honey Royale nectarine don’t have many surviving flower buds either, but I have to look closer to see if this is because of cold or just crappy set to begin with. Both of these are generally poor producers here. I’m wondering if I can figure out a way to summer prune them so they produce smaller, more productive annual shoots- they are both excessively vigorous with a few flowers at the end of some of the excessively large shoots.
Emerald Beaut plum is barely alive due to cold events a couple years ago, Maybe that’s why it has lots of viable flower buds as more vigorous wood tends to have more water. In the west you can improve freeze tolerance by turning off irrigation in the fall.
After the disaster of last year I am ecstatic to see all the buds on the species that are doing well. I’ll take it!.. but still a long ways to go. .
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If it is going to happen, I have no idea which trees I should protect.
What is with this cold blob over Eastern North America??? Is it ever going to move?
I’m not sure I’m reading that right- I think it is saying that SW CT will be 4-6 degrees C (11F) below normal. Since the average low on May 8th is 46F degrees, does that mean it will get down to about 35F?
Apples are still in bloom now, but should be close to done by then. I don’t think that 35F would hurt anything, but much lower would. For what it’s worth, the 10 day forecast currently puts the low at 42F on May 8th and 41F on May 3rd.
Hard to say this far out…i’d wait and watch this progress a little. I had models showing me in the 20Fs a few nights and the coldest i’ve been down to is 32F to 34F…wind/clouds etc can make a huge difference…ground temps…the long days help too.
Wants to really carve that trough out in the east days 8-10
Canadian --not this week—the following…
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If temps stay above about 25 from here on out, we should be fine.
I just wanted to report nothing was hit here. My Flavor Supreme is the most sensitive and it lost half it’s fruit buds. Nothing else lost any. Supreme is going to set some fruit here all the same. So a great year so far. With the south being hit, we will have great demand for our peaches in Michigan. Will probably have 2nd or 3rd largest crop in the states this year. usually we are 6th.