Strange weather - Will it get our blooms and fruit?

Last year about this time, it was 9 F. I decided to put up a couple of tents over a nectarine tree and a plum tree with lights hanging inside for a heat source. Sound like a very good plan.

I did not realize that it was a very windy night. The tents were flapping in the wind. Some cords/strings that I secured the tents with went flying. Tons of buds on each branch were ripped off when branches got blown around and rubbed against those strings.

Truthfully, I would have had some buds survived in that temperature, had I not put up those tents and cause more damage.

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Always interesting to hear from you and I’m glad you agree about contender being both a good peach in general as well as a more cold hardy tree (well, a later blooming tree so more hardy in that regard) .

Guess what I literally planted 5 minutes before I read your pose above about how much better contender is than Loring? Yep…my first Lowing peach tree! hahaha. Talk about a kick in the head! haha. Oh well, maybe I’ll have better luck with it here. :frowning:

I actually gave all those things consideration and decided when I covered them I flipped each cloth over the top, pulled all the braches to the center and put two pieces of twine top and middle and lightly tied them. It looks like 40 little ghosts out in my yard! The trees are still relatively small so everything stayed tied and I didn’t lose anything. I’m sure this won’t work with bigger trees but it appears it did this year.

Lord willing, last night was probably the last freeze for the season, although the tradition in Statesboro, Georgia is that Easter is the real beginning of spring. It got down to 31 at about 5:30 am and stayed there until about 7:30 or 8:00. There was no really significant damage to any of the fruit crops that I grow as best as I can tell. I lost a few huckleberries (Vaccinium elliottii), AKA Elliot’s Blueberry, on about three bushes but probably not enough to even notice.


The bush is the photo is one of the furtherest along and one that I was really worried about because it has such a good crop and is in a very exposed spot. Oddly, the three bushed showing some damage were in a spot that I would have considered better protected. Anyway, this pic was taken at about 8:30 am. Even now this bush looks like nothing happed. I should start getting some ripe berries in about three weeks.

The plums look OK. There were some plums on Toole’s Heirloom that looked a little iffy this morning but they look fine now.


Unless disaster strikes I’m in good shape to get a good crop of plums for the first time since 2015. I had pollination issues between Robusto an Asian X Chickasaw hybrid and Toole’s Heirllom which is a mostly Chickasaw variety I passed down from my dad’s family. I brought in a bunch of bloomin wild Chickasaw limbs and stationed them in buckets of water under the trees. The result was a heavy crop of plums on Toole’s Heirloom and a soso crop on Robusto. My Marianna plum has not produced a crop since my Green Gage died. I brought blooming hog plum (Prunus umbelatta) limbs into the yard and now Mariana has a moderate crop. Here Marianna ripens fruit in late May. Robusto Ripens fruit in early June. And Toole’s Heirloom ripens fruit in Late June and early July.

The pears are all fine and so are the citrus. There was no new leaf damage on the figs which was a surprise as tender as new fig leaves are. This morning I thought I had a little damage on my rabbit eye blueberries, but this evening they looked much better. If I had any real damage on them, it’s miniscule. The muscadines, of course, are still very dormant. God bless.

Marcus

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Don’t get too disappointed about it. Although Loring is pretty temperamental with weather (produced nothing for me last year), when the weather fires on all cylinders, it’s a peach which can’t hardly be beat (by Midwest standards). I wouldn’t suggest this one as a bread and butter peach, but it’s worth keeping for the good years. I have three of them.

I would suggest that if you have an option, put them in a higher place, so they are well out of a frost pocket.

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Loring is one of the best tasting peaches I’ve ever had.

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You’re welcome :slight_smile: I hope my instructions to the individual weather stations’ histories weren’t too confusing. It seems there’s too much clicking, but I keep getting my airport unless I go that way, lol.

Yeah, I’ve really lost a lot of flowers already because of our outrageously warm Feb (like last year) :frowning: [Edit: I’m the next city over from @blueberrythrill]

Last night got to 22 at the stations closest to me, but I could be on higher ground because my back yard is a big slope. The airport near me had 26.

So since major bloom, that’s one night at 24 lowest and one as low as 22. I really, really hope that’s all!

I still have a few flowers of most all varieties that aren’t opened yet, so hopefully that’s at least a few tree fruit! My trees really bloomed a lot more this year.

Redskin is really good at having some tight blooms left. JH Hale is not. J plums are kinda bad at that, apparently, but they have so many more blooms to start with that I might be OK.

I can see some obvious flower damage, but I was surprised to see so many good looking blooms today (Redskin especially, but even on the J plums). The pistil part that sticks out look excellent on so many. I didn’t dissect anything because I want to keep any good ones left, lol!! I did see pictures on the web of peach flowers with pretty outer parts that were black inside, tho, so I don’t know yet that mine are good.

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For those who have suffered frost damage, just wanted to mention that if the weather is cool (after the frost) it generally takes a week before you can see flower damage externally. I’ve had times where I was prematurely relieved I didn’t have much damage, only to find flowers starting to show damage after a week, and falling off. If the weather is warm after a frost event, flowers show damage much sooner.

Last year we had some major frosts (they never come singly). I had sprayed copper at a couple pounds/acre before blooms opened and felt like it helped. Copper is labeled to kill ice nucleating bacteria, so that water is able to super cool at lower temps (Blueberrythrill was the first to alert me to this a couple years ago.) I sprayed the whole orchard at the farm, but not at the house, and the trees at the farm had more fruit.

Not a perfect test, but I don’t feel like I need a perfect test since the product is labeled for some degree of frost protection. It can only be used at very very small dosage once the flowers open, since copper can be toxic to the flower parts. It’s best to spray it before flowers open.

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Thanks,Mark for reminding me about copper for frost protection. I may as well try it. I have nothing to lose.
I have never spray when temp was below 30 before. This would be my first.

@mrsg47 and @SMC_zone6, will you try? We all have Kocide 3000. I will add Nufilm to it.

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I did a copper spray just a few weeks ago, so I’m hesitant to do one again. But it’s a good tip for the future, thanks.

Tippy,

My guess is you might get more of a benefit using it closer to bloom, that way there is minimal wash off from rainfall, and a maximum amount of copper residue. But that’s just a guess. The label only says to spray it at least 24 hours prior to a frost event (which is a pretty huge window).

Our peach trees are at the bud swell stage. Last year I sprayed it at green calyx, this year I may even wait a little longer, maybe even pink bud.

I’d like to use copper as both a frost protection and leaf curl protection, which would enable me to cut out a spray. However, I’m not sure how effective copper is as a frost protection when sprayed before bud swell (which is necessary for leaf curl protection). Anyone know, or have any thoughts?

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Mark,

@SMC_zone6 may have an answer for you. He and I sprayed copper (and oil) about two weeks ago. I think he sprayed it a couple of days before me. That’s when peach buds were fully dormant (for me, that spray was mainly for peach leave curl and smothering insect eggs). So SMC won’t spray copper again for frost protection. He could let us know if or how much his one copper spray at full dormancy could protect against frost.

The caveat is after that spray, we had two big snow storms. I don’t really know how much copper got washed off.

Right now, my peaches are at swollen buds and my apricots are a bit further along. If I spray for frost protection, I hope it help me with apricots more than anything else.

The weather is not helping. The frost will be tomorrow night. I don’t know if I could spray this evening as it is cold and windy today. If I can’t spray this evening, I may not spray at all and see if one spray two weeks ago will help.

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Yesterday went out to my shiro in 90% boom no bees anywhere a few flies and some other fly type I don’t know in them and my Howard miracle at about 20% bloom nothing either don’t no if my feb. 20 degree nights and freezes did them in but not 60 ft away honey bees and a few bumblebees in garden on the weeds. Noticed now two of my paw paw trees have flowers forming not just one like last year. Curios if both will bloom at same time don’t think so as one tree is bigger than other one.

Well I know everyone in this thread is jealous of southern California weather and our low chill requirements…but nobody is immune from frost damage. Frost took out most of my blooms on my desert delight nectarines. It has a chill req of 200 hrs – so any warm winter spell triggers bloom. We had a really warm January followed by a cold February… So bye bye crop.

I know the following sounds a little crazy, but not considering the cost - would the following scenario get this tree to bloom again this summer?:

Wait a month or two, then pull off the leaves. Then build an insulated structure around the tree and cool it with a window air conditioner below 45 degrees for 10 days. Then maybe keep it shaded for another few weeks while it adjusts back to the hot weather.

Again, it sounds crazy but I’ve always wondered if this would work, especially if you had a really small dwarf tree.

It might get it to bloom again. But it would probably not have enough energy stored up to set fruit. Sometimes you can get Anna apples to set a second fall crop.

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Yes I will spray tomorrow. :pray:t2:

If this cold wind will continue to be this strong tomorrow. No spray for me :thinking:

Sorry to hear the bad news Steven. We’re having sleet right at the moment.

Tony

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teens predicted over the weekend -0 windsheild factor at night. no spring melting here!