Our usual spring freezes are clear skies and a quick drop below freezing. Last night was heavy cloud cover, windy, and 32 to 30.9 officially for ~10 hours.
New growth on freeze sensitive plants and fully formed fruit appears to have survived despite 1/4 inch of ice on my water barrel. I thought the long duration might have done them in.
They’re predicting 35 tomorrow morning I’d expect below freezing again with clear skies.
Pecan
Mulberry
Apricot
Asian pear
Yesterday we had rain, sleet, and about one inch of snow. That’s more than the rest of the winter combined. It was so bad that when I went walking yesterday afternoon a guy stopped and asked if I needed a ride. I had on a good raincoat and three layers of shirts. I was feeling good. But a bit wet after I got home.
I had just planted a dozen or so lettuce starts and settled down for the evening when a snow squall dropped 2+ inches of wet snow on them, and the next night it dropped to 25 F. But they seem fine today.
That’s awesome to see n hear fruitnut! Up here in Amarillo, TX all of our blossoming fruit tree have also started their post bloom process and haven’t got to check out our backyard orchard yet but your post give me hope they will all be fine n dandy! I think that the combination of the cloud cover and moisture really helps protect these fruits as long as the temperatures hover above 28f.
Ah yes, Amarillo. I grew fruit there from 1970 until 2000. That’s where I learned a bit about freezes, the hard way. People don’t understand how you could face 50 damaging freezes in 30 years. It seems like it was a 100. And it was since I had crops in multiple locations and most years there was more than one damaging freeze. It usually takes 2-3 freezes to take out everything. The apricots go first followed by the peaches, apples, and pears.
I worked on sugarbeets for Texas A&M University. It was freezes in fall in the early 90s two years in a row that took out that industry. We also had massive losses on wheat. One year in particular that I remember it took out hundreds of thousands of acres including about 50 acres of my research plots.
I see Amarillo was down to 27 last night with clouds. Do you know how much damage that caused?
Hahaha yes if you grow anything from here then you can pretty much grow anything anywhere! So I went out there earlier this morning and was amazed at how everything is doing and help up! I did not see a lot of burning on any of the tender leaves except toward the very top of the canopy. Also, a lot of the tiny baby peaches were already formed and not much is falling off at the moment…but…I will check on it here in another few days to see if everything is still hanging on. Pretty much all of the peaches, cherries, pears, apples, and even the rare baby apricots are still hanging on and look healthy. I know for a fact it did get below freezing because of the thin ice layer on top of our water buckets but I feel confident that the thick cloud cover combined with the wet snow/rain gave all of the trees enough protection for a decent harvest this year…until our next late freeze that is lol.
You can tell if the tiny fruits are frozen as soon as it warms up. Cut them open. If still firm and green they’re OK. If frozen the color changes to greys and browns and the fruit losses it’s firmness. Even if frozen they don’t fall off for a number of days or weeks.
We got a low of 32F… on 3/20… just for a couple hours right at daylight. Before daylight it was in the 35-33 range.
I had light frost on grass and my truck windshield had frost on it.
The only thing I had blooming yet were jplums.
AU Rosa was just a bit past full bloom. AU Producer and Shiro were in full bloom.
Alderman had just started to open some early blossoms.
A couple days later all those nice white shiro blossoms were brown… AU Producer most blossoms near limb tips looked ragged but there were several on the main branch that looked fresh and new… AU Rosa was already near the end of its bloom and just sort if ended.
A couple weeks later… Shiro has lots of fruit set, AU Producer set quite a bit of fruit on those blossoms that looked new/fresh… and Alderman bloomed mostly after the light frost and has set several fruit.
AU Rosa… my earliest bloomer… 3rd year in a row has no fruit set after a frost.
I am going to replace most of AU Rosa with Alderman and other later bloomers.
TNHunter
I never understood how that worked Fruitnut. This morning (Sunday) we got down to 36F. Strange how it can get colder further south. It happens here too. Sometimes it’s colder in KS than MN. I know it has to do with the jet streams, but it’s just strange.
We have our knockout cold coming up. Tomorrow morning they are calling for about 34F. But Tues. morning they are currently calling for 30F. Most of the time, we get a few degrees colder than downtown KC. So we could be looking at 27F or colder. And that’s assuming the weather forecasters don’t lower the forecast even more, which they are prone to do during these Spring cold fronts. Might not be such a problem, except we didn’t get a lot of bloom to begin with.
I have noticed that the duration of time it stays cold makes a difference. That’s something I don’t see discussed in the literature. As far as I know just about all the cold chamber testing is something like 1/2 hour at whatever test temperature. But as you point out sometimes it stays cold for much longer periods of time.
I remember one year it stayed at 32F for two days during peach bloom. I looked at several personal online weather stations close to the orchard, and their histories showed a steady 32F for two days. That was enough to freeze off all the peaches.
Pretty much everything here, except some apples, is in full bloom or petal fall.
I hope you make it by without damage. I’ve got very little at risk and a backup. That’s your livelihood.
Thanks Steve. Just watched the local news forecast tonight. They’ve lowered the temp Tues. morning by 1 degree to 29F. If I’ve seen this once, I’ve seen this a hundred times.
Cold is predicted here, but everything is still dormant. I hope it stays that way for a while yet. They are talking 20 F Tuesday, which is nothing particularly unusual for this time of year.
Forecast is for low of 30 Wed morning. Maybe 2 hours of 32 and below. I am at shuck split on peaches and full bloom on apples after several days of low 80s and 65 degree nights. The wind finally died down late evening yesterday to put on first spray of Imidan for PC. Raining this morning with 2+ inches expected through the day.
They are calling for 37F tonight and 33F tomorrow night here.
The rest of my 10 day lows are in the 40s 50s 60s.
It is normally around 5 degrees warmer here than what they predict.
I have fruit set on plums, cherries and chestnut apple, myers royal limbertwig is blooming, eu plum still blooming, blueberries and goumi still blooming but with some fruit set.
I have a couple of persimmons pushing green growth already… prok and jt02. 3 mulberries with green growth and fruit out already.
Hope we get more like 38F instead of 33F.
TNHunter
For the people using surround sprays, do you generally maintain your schedule during these potential frost times (and potentially just waste the surround as the fruits drop) or do you wait till after the frost passes?
mf
You can sometimes see the airmasses (especially east of the divide) better by looking at the dewpoints this time of year since you get a lot of diurnal swings from the stronger April sun. You can see how this airmass is dropping southward and sort of backs in from the NE into your area around KC. So it’s a shallow airmass that mixes out quickly by Wednesday, but there’s enough dry air at the surface Tue morning so that you radiate down below freezing. We get a lot of these backdoor fronts in New England as they accelerate down the relatively cold North Atlantic/Labrador current this time of year.
Those “blue northers” for Amarillo can be fun…meteorologically anyway. Those airmasses want to drop south and somewhat westward as well, but the high terrain along the Continental Divide won’t let the shallow cold go west and so it just accelerates southward. All of those locations in the western Plains are prone to some drastic temperature swings. Flip the wind westerly and now you’re downsloping and getting hot/dry off the mountains. Veer the wind SE and you’re pulling in high humidity from the Gulf. It’s no surprise why it’s tornado alley.
I’m in Southern Illinois, about 1hr 30 minutes SE of St. Louis. All of our weather stations are out of St. Louis. They are usually 1-2* warmer than here. Last night they were calling for a low of 33 and my outdoor weather station (it is in a lower spot in the yard where my peaches and apples are) read 30.8 at 6am. Tonight they are calling for a low of 30 and a freeze warning. Peaches are in full bloom (some petals falling already) and apples are in partial bloom. Hopefully I just get minimal freeze damage.
If its cold the PC is not active, so just wait it out.
We have 28F low forecast for Weds which should not be a problem… assuming it doesn’t go down a lot more. This currently looks like the last cold spell for the spring here, but I’ve learned to never say never …
Well, Trev, here we go. I hope and pray that the overnight drop in temperatures doesn’t pan out below 34 or 35. All six of the peaches and all five of the apples have gone through petal drop and shuck split. The kiwis have budded out and are looking beautiful. All of these cultivars are at risk and there is not much we can do. Most everything is too big to cover, save the blueberries. I am confident that after tomorrow night’s low we will be ok.
Aside from that, we joined the Nashville Rose Society and got some #1 certified roses this past week for half the price of a nursery price and those babies are looking real good out there; but I am concerned enough that, later today, I will probably move them into the garage. We keep some of our figs in a bed in front of our south facing house and a few of them have already set the early fruit.
