-36!!!
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I think trees are blooming in St Louis… not good. I would think even Atlanta gets a freeze out of this.
Yea, current predictions have us below freezing for Wednesday. Looks like I’ll be doing the container shuffle mid week.
Record low for March 15 in Atlanta is 20F from 1993…doubt it gets that cold… That summer was a warm one in the southeast.
No, we should be quite a bit warmer than that. Forecast keeps fluctuating but was at 28-29 F for the low last time I checked.
I finally bit the bullet and walked down to my orchard yesterday! I was surprised to find that my buds are all fine (but) between last night and today we’ve had six inches of snow. Large heavy white flakes. If there was sun it would melt quickly. Instead we’re having another snow storm. The buds looked strong, but only my ‘Early Crawford’ peach was showing a hint of green or tiny bit of pink. The other buds are all (peaches) swollen. The Apricots have nice round swelling buds as well. Definitely no flowers. The apples and plums and pears are all still sleeping. Whew!!!
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Well, is suppose to get down to 34F here tonight with frost from 3:00 AM to 9:00 AM. Plum and pear trees are in bloom with small fruit on each tree. Suppose to get to down to 30F tomorrow night with rain and snow. Would spraying water on the trees help? Other than that what should I do?
It’s supposed to get down to 24 tonight. So I ghetto rigged up a tarp cover with the only incandescent light bulb I could find in my house, a 60w bulb connected to a hanging lamp. I had clamps rolling the edge of the tarps together but ran out and used cloths pins at the bottom. As you can tell the cloths pin popped off. So I replaced it with a binder clip. My neighbor’s are probably laughing their butts off right now but it’s worth a try. The tree it’s covering is a spice zee that’s loaded with fruit buds. My other peaches are too far from the house to run electric.
My one concern is if a single 60w bulb might be too hot to be concentrated near some buds. I’d rather have used old school Xmas lights but we got rid of those long ago. We now use LED lights throughout the house.
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I bet they’ll be fine, plus if you do overheat a couple, its better than losing all to the cold.
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I’m surprised I don’t hear much talk about smudge pots.
The people who spend their lives studying this stuff suspect that the new normal is abnormal with an increase in extreme weather as the wave of the future may already be breaking on our heads. However, your own mileage may vary. My sister in far northern CA has not experienced weird swings at all (the CA drought didn’t affect her, for one thing)- but then, the experts say she is in a part of the country that will be least affected by the “new normal”. If I lose the crop again this year in SE NY I might just move there- just far enough from the ocean to grow stone fruit. Must be land for sale as recreational pot there is now legal so there may be no reason to hide it in isolated places in the Jade triangle.
How much snow did you get?
I turned off my outside faucet (i have a valve in the basement that i close). Little worried it might freeze on me. I’ve had them freeze in the past. One year i had a frost proof one freeze/split open.
Thought someone might want to know the specific temperature that damage will occur to the fruit buds and flowers. This link is an excellent guide https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://extension.usu.edu/files/publications/factsheet/pub__5191779.pdf&ved=0ahUKEwjE_dWvtM3SAhWpbZoKHY6lDtIQFggfMAA&usg=AFQjCNFYCg5hxKTRgluX2elyqVaAPJ5CtQ. At least we know specifically what to expect. There was one tree I did not hit with copper last week when I sprayed the others which is my red blushing Bartlett. It will be a great controlled experiment. The lows are now expected to be 19, 23, 24, and 20 degrees. Some of the flowers are to far along but my small yellow pear and my Asian pears still have a chance.
It snowed all last night and most of today but it was very heavy wet snow. Most melted off but there was still about 3 inches on the ground.
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Clark,
I have checked that chart every year. The temp fluctuation last year and this year has been so out of wack.
In the span of 10 days, we will have had at least 6 days of temp in a single digit (5, 6, 8, 9, etc.). Look at the chart makes me feel quite pessimistic.
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Is that the most so far this year for you?
We are in line for 4-6 inches Sun/Mon now… Kids have off school Monday so that is probably good.
This has been the lighted snow year I remember in years. We’ve had a hand full of 3-4 inch snowfalls and probably only one over 5 inches. The ski resorts around here are struggling this winter.
Mamuang,
I know it does not look good. Are all the buds open? My carmine Jewell cherries are barely swollen. The apples are ok so far here. Things are not looking good for most pears.