2021 Buds, Flowers and Fruit!

Shameless fruit scouting again this year :slight_smile: Citrus from @fruitfruitā€™s 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€¦

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That looks like pomelo. No wonder they are so good.

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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.

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Jealous of your well shaped trees. Iā€™d be ashamed if anyone saw some of mine. Some you canā€™t train right, but I could have done better.

Nice mulch job, too.

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I saw lows in the upper 20s for the KC area on Tue and Wed nights. Hope @olpea, @clarkinks, @ctduckhunter, @KSprairie and otherā€™s trees make it alright.

We have 31 now forecast for Wed night. Iā€™m not too optimistic about them being accurate. Our old Milam apple trees are in full bloom now, as well as redbudā€™s and dogwoodā€™s.

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@subdood_ky_z6b

Itā€™s going to be close Pear Bloom kill and a year without fruit in 2021 or not? - #8 by clarkinks

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Based on the last couple years, Iā€™m not too confident. Not much we can do about it, other than our blooming strawberries, which my wife wants to cover, so weā€™ll see.

Iā€™m worried about my emerging blackberry canes, too. They got bit last year, too.

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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

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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 :pray:
Thanks for the kind thoughts, thinking of us! :blush:
Hope you scoot through without damage too!

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Iā€™m 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.

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Sorry to hear that Mark. Hopefully something will set somewhereā€¦ wishing you the best.

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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

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The cherry and peach crop will be light now. The apricots and nectarines are non existent. The plums, apples, and pears Itā€™s anyoneā€™s guess.

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Thanks Tippy and Kevin. As far as I can tell, this winter was about a 30 year low. In other words, itā€™s been about 30 years since itā€™s been that cold here. Iā€™ve 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 thatā€™s been about 10 years ago.

Itā€™s interesting to see which varieties went ahead and bloomed, and which varieties didnā€™t.

Hereā€™s a quick report while itā€™s 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 donā€™t get frozen going forward.

Risingstar is such undervalued peach. It should be the ā€œgo toā€ variety for itā€™s window. I say that because itā€™s the sweetest peach for itā€™s window Iā€™ve 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 donā€™t get froze off.

Contender has done pretty well both of these tough years too, but Iā€™m not super enamored with the flavor of Contender, although itā€™s acceptable, as long as itā€™s 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.

Thatā€™s about all I can think of which had an amount of blooms worth noting.

Surprisingly, two supposed cold hardy varieties (Madison and Veteran) donā€™t 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.

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Multi graft Bartlett, shinko, Korean Giant.

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Mark,
Thanks for mentioning the real cold tolerant varieties.

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@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

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Wild muscadine I have on a trellis on the left side of my back yard.

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So youā€™re 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 ā€˜normalā€™ 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 arenā€™t opening up all the way, prob due to those cold nights. Will they set fruit in that state? I dissected some and they werenā€™t black on the inside, so I figure theyā€™re 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 thatā€™s 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 thatā€™s another reason why itā€™s label is prob wrongā€¦

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Thanks for the great information Mark.

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