I wanted to post this why it still fresh in my ephemeral memory. I went out to the farm today and cut open hundreds of blooms to see the frost damage. We’ve received several damaging frosts, but, by far the worst was the frost received on 3-25 when most blooms were full or petal fall, and I recorded temps about 24 or 25F on a couple cheap thermometers. Frost was 1/8" thick on blooms. The grass was crunch w/ frost.
The personal weather station (PWS) 4 miles south of the farm recorded 22F (call letters ME5859) for the low that morning. A PWS 10 miles south recorded 20.6F for the low.
Subsequent to that we recorded another damaging frost of 24F a couple days later at the weather station 4 miles south (ME5859)
The extent of the damage, was severe. Based on my observations @ +5 days the major frost event, we had about 10% of most blooms survive. This is inline w/ MSU frost charts. In previous years I’ve noticed much higher temps still kill flowers, but again this year it appears to be inline w/ the charts.
Still have 2 weeks more of high risk frosts here, plus hail (NWS predicting high probability of hail at 7 this evening) so not commenting on the crop potential here. Just reporting what I’ve seen so far.
Glad the storm skipped mksmth. Calm here now, but I think it’s headed our way. Here’s the NWS hazardous warning for our area:
" STRONG TO SEVERE STORMS ARE POSSIBLE TODAY…WITH GREATEST CONCERN
HEADING INTO THE EVENING HOURS. STRONG WINDS AND LARGE HAIL WILL BE
THE PRIMARY THREATS. TORNADO THREAT IS LOW FOR MUCH OF THE AREA
WITH HIGHEST PROBABILITY ACROSS EASTERN KANSAS AND NORTHWEST
MISSOURI."
Mark,
My heart goes out to you. Would this be the second serious crop loss in three years? One of the recent winters was brutal to your area, too, right? It is so unfair.
The more I learn about the severe and unpredictable weather in the midwest, the more I feel that having a blizzard once in a while here is nothing compare to what you have to face there.
Thank you so much my dear friend mamuang. Really, so far I’m more optimistic than I was before. There is still 2 weeks of severe frost risk, but a 10% bloom survival is still a decent crop, so my mood is better tonight than it has been in a week.
So perhaps I may be helpful, please allow me to describe the method:
I cut at least ten blooms per tree on a cutting board for lots of trees. For most trees I found about one in ten blooms w/ the ovary plump and green (the other nine shriveled and brown in the interior - this is 5 days after the freeze event - blooms at petal fall all still on the trees - whether alive or not). I will reiterate for clarification, dead blooms will hang on the trees for a long time. Blooms hanging on the tree mean nothing. It’s important to cut the blooms open to determine if they are alive. Cut them vertically from the base. The ovary is at the bottom. It should be plump and green inside. If it’s brown inside or shriveled, it’s dead.
Of the alive blooms, I really don’t know how many of these will actually produce fruit. I observed that a significant percentage of small fruit abort and fall off way after fruit set/shuck split in a normal year, so there is some questions I don’t know the answer to.
I believe a lot of the fruit that never fattens and drops from the tree would have if there wasn’t competition from other healthy flowers, I do wonder how a 10% bloom affects the attraction of pollinators. If they are there the fewer flowers should get more attention- like only children.
I don’t want to flood this thread with a million maps, but this is for Tues… Looks awfully cold, but i have no idea who is blooming/etc… so it might effect some, while others should be just fine (if the trees are still sleeping some).
I know there is snow in the forecast for some of these areas, hence the reason for the single digits in areas.
Are you blooming/leafed out? I guess that is what matters the most… I have a few nights coming up in the 20Fs, but no flowers open yet, so i don’t worry too much at this time.
Polar Vortex once again, and the temps do not look good. I’m very close to the water (ocean) so we’ll get into the 20’s and 30’s but not much lower. We might have a dusting of snow, but hopefully nothing that will last. It just looks like a huge front. I still do not have anything blooming yet (except for one rogue apricot blossom that is at ‘popcorn’ stage). I am so lucky all is so slow this spring. We are about 20 degrees below our normal temps.
If my weather app is any accurate, we northern IL will get about 4 night tempts into the upper 20F and day tempts from 45F to 60F. Nothing bloom yet but my peaches are visibly pink and my pears are eagerly white, ready for blooms!
