My trees are all sound sleeping.
Nankings are blooming, my grandson saw them today and said " yeah , we get to eat cherries " I wish I had his optimism, lol. Some are still sleeping, we will see
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This year my part of Kansas has been staying very dry. The water table is down several feet. My mature fruit trees have nothing to be concerned about but new trees are something else. If the trend continues the fruit will be very sweet this year. Winter stayed cold a little longer and nothing is blooming just yet. The longer those buds take to open the better I feel. They are swelled so there is no slowing down pears, plums, apricots, and peaches.
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Mrs. G.,
Did you spray today? I did not as the wind was even stronger than yesterday and it was very cold, too.
Earlt tomorrow temp will be at the lowest 12 F and will be in the teen for two more day. We will see how much damage on stone fruit we will get.
No, it was really too cold and the wind came in large gusts. Maybe it will slow down in the next few days. I cannot wait to get it on though, just in case we get more snow. I know we’ll get rain.
I sprayed copper today.
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The apricot blooms are getting ready to get frozen when it dips down to 20 degrees this week. The pears are not open yet but many of them are close.
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Low of 29 forecasted for Monday. My house is usually a couple degrees colder, everything is blooming so I am a bit worried. Also expecting 30 mph gusts…the weather is cruel somtimes.
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As predicted this year has been no different for the apricots than what was expected. I got the trees for 98 cents each from Gurneys or Henry Fields many years ago. They are beautiful trees now and very large. Those full sized concret blocks are small in comparison to the trunks on these trees.
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Beautiful apricot blossom. There is snow on the ground, will it hurt the tree set fruits?
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Yes It’s going to get down to 20 F so I will lose the apricot crop. Snow is not necessarily bad.
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7 days ago the long term forecast looked very positive but things change quickly. Looks like another year getting my fruit blooms zapped. What little apple blooms I’ll have should be okay but the full bloom plums, cots, pluots, and peaches wont survive 21.
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We had thin layer of snow on the ground yestetday morning，night temp is in low 20. But my trees are not completely waken up yet, Will see how this weather affects the fruit trees flowers
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Next Friday and Saturday looks nice.
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They are saying 10 degrees for a low now Friday night. At that temp according to the charts most buds that have shown any degree of “awakedness” are going to get damaged. This weather is ridiculous.
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That sucks, it’s going to be 21 here too, but my trees are only at bud swell, so they will be fine. You guys are really making me appreciate my location farther north. Well working outside is a pain, it’s cold, the fingers are stiff, I have a garage full of plants from nurseries leafed out that I can’t plant yet. My indoor space is filled with figs tomatoes and peppers, so the plants are in the garage. It’s about 35 in there.
I see you have a temp swing of 50 degrees in a week! Wow! We hit 50F a couple times (two!) mostly highs have been about 39F. The northern chill keeps dipping down on you guys, I don’t see the trend ending either in future years. We have been averaging 30 degrees colder than normal the last few years at certain times. Never seen anything like it my whole life. It’s cold here anyway so not like I notice really, 30 degrees to 0 degrees, not much difference! Both are cold!
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Depending on which site I check, I see everything from 29 to 25 degrees Saturday night (with some snow). Peaches are in full bloom, so I expect some damage, but I wonder how bad it will be? Some pears and apples are looking fairly close to opening as well, but last year they seemed to be unaffected the late frost.
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I was really hoping for a first taste of peaches this year since our trees are now old enough to bear, but we have a low Saturday night that looks like it will nix that. Currently forecast to drop to 19 and the peach blooms are mostly open. For a bit it was forecast to drop to 24 and I was hoping that would go up a degree or two but if it hits 19 all is lost. I’m new to growing fruit but I’m wondering how commercial orchards survive this stuff – we have a couple peach orchards relatively nearby in Afton/Crozet Va (but maybe different microclimate because of the mountains around here ). I’m really starting to wonder if home growers in these temperamental areas will have to grow inside of hoop houses to succeed!
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I am not far away from you, and I am wondering the same thing. I have been told years ago th orchard would put out metal pots filled with kerosene to warm the orchards. I can tell you covering the trees doesn’t work - been there done that.
Are you close to Saunders Brothers?
http://www.saundersbrothersfarmmarket.com/page/Estimated-Ripening-Schedule
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