Shameless fruit scouting again this year Citrus from @fruitfruitās yard.
I should let my Oro Blancos ripen until April. They are so much sweeter and almost no bitterness. If you peel them properly that isā¦
Shameless fruit scouting again this year Citrus from @fruitfruitās yard.
I should let my Oro Blancos ripen until April. They are so much sweeter and almost no bitterness. If you peel them properly that isā¦
That looks like pomelo. No wonder they are so good.
Supposed to be a cross of pomelo and white grapefruit. Essentially a pomelo in its fruit characteristics but read that it can ripen in our coastal weather compared to traditional pomelos which need serious heat.
Jealous of your well shaped trees. Iād be ashamed if anyone saw some of mine. Some you canāt train right, but I could have done better.
Nice mulch job, too.
I saw lows in the upper 20s for the KC area on Tue and Wed nights. Hope @olpea, @clarkinks, @ctduckhunter, @KSprairie and otherās trees make it alright.
We have 31 now forecast for Wed night. Iām not too optimistic about them being accurate. Our old Milam apple trees are in full bloom now, as well as redbudās and dogwoodās.
Itās going to be close Pear Bloom kill and a year without fruit in 2021 or not? - #8 by clarkinks
Based on the last couple years, Iām not too confident. Not much we can do about it, other than our blooming strawberries, which my wife wants to cover, so weāll see.
Iām worried about my emerging blackberry canes, too. They got bit last year, too.
My Reliance ? Peach with the extra showy blossoms as usual when it does set fruit ā¦ it loads up.
Got some thinning to do.
TNHunter
So far it looks like 31, 27, and 30 for overnight lows M-W at my location.
It seems to change multiple times daily, with that Tuesday night being most variable. Nothing I can do about it, except pray
Thanks for the kind thoughts, thinking of us!
Hope you scoot through without damage too!
Iām not very worried about it this year. The peaches already lost virtually all the crop with the 17 below weather we hit this winter.
If temps got low enough I suppose it could knock off all the cherry, apple and pear blooms. But they are a small percentage of our sales anyway. If the weather destroys those crops, I may just take the summer off.
Sorry to hear that Mark. Hopefully something will set somewhereā¦ wishing you the best.
Mark,
Sorry to hear that. I did not realize KS got hit with such low temp. News at the time was about Texas being frozen.
Temperaturre swing in the midwest appears to be a lot more extreme and more often than we have here in New England. Hope this week temp will not be bad and will spare you and others in KS and nearby states
The cherry and peach crop will be light now. The apricots and nectarines are non existent. The plums, apples, and pears Itās anyoneās guess.
Thanks Tippy and Kevin. As far as I can tell, this winter was about a 30 year low. In other words, itās been about 30 years since itās been that cold here. Iāve been personally recording winter lows since 2006. Most winters it gets to about zero or a little colder. It once got down to about -13F, but thatās been about 10 years ago.
Itās interesting to see which varieties went ahead and bloomed, and which varieties didnāt.
Hereās a quick report while itās still fresh in my head, if anyone is interested.
The two biggest winners were Risingstar and Contender. Both suffered damage, but still look like they will have close to full crops, if blooms donāt get frozen going forward.
Risingstar is such undervalued peach. It should be the āgo toā variety for itās window. I say that because itās the sweetest peach for itās window Iāve tried. And it is super reliable in my climate. Last year we had a very late spring freeze which occurred after all the peaches set fruit. Risingstar sailed through that with flying colors.
This year, with the -17F winter low, it still looks like it could have a full crop, if the blooms donāt get froze off.
Contender has done pretty well both of these tough years too, but Iām not super enamored with the flavor of Contender, although itās acceptable, as long as itās not overcropped.
Redhaven also had some blooms on the trees.
Ernies Choice had a few blooms.
Baby Crawford had a decent amount of blooms.
SureCrop had good amount of blooms.
Thatās about all I can think of which had an amount of blooms worth noting.
Surprisingly, two supposed cold hardy varieties (Madison and Veteran) donāt have any blooms to speak of. Veteran proved very productive last year from the very late frost, but this year was pretty much blank of blooms.
Mark,
Thanks for mentioning the real cold tolerant varieties.
@olpea I started a risingstar last spring after reading comments on this board from you and others made a couple years ago. Glad to hear your good comments on it continue.
Hope to get to try some this year it does have fruit on now.
TNHunter
So youāre saying the peach fruit buds got fried with those temps? Did you lose any trees?
Two years ago, none of my peaches bloomed, but it never got below zero that I can remember. It figures, as we had a ānormalā spring warm up, that is, no warm spells followed by freezes.
This year, my peach buds got hit with two nights at 20-22 degrees. Now at bloom time, most of the blossoms arenāt opening up all the way, prob due to those cold nights. Will they set fruit in that state? I dissected some and they werenāt black on the inside, so I figure theyāre ok?
The same has happened to some of the apple blossoms, the petals look a bit wrinkled, and not fully opened up.
BTW, my Contender thatās not really a Contender (we discussed this last year, due to its blossom type) has lost most of its flowers. So that kinda confirms to me that thatās another reason why itās label is prob wrongā¦
Thanks for the great information Mark.