It was 15°F here this morning (frost pocket). Only a little ice in the water buckets under the covers. So hopefully I saved the plums. My peach and early blooming apples are too big to cover and probably have significant damage. Zestar and Liberty were somewhere between 1/2 in green and tight cluster so the tables would indicate pretty heavy bud damage.
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That stinks, its frustrating to get so close and get nailed by the finish line. . .
Glad yours are OK.
I may try Wilt Stop as Drew suggested but covering trees is more work as it often happens to be windy on such occasions. Plus, I am lazy 
So I live with the consequence.
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Plus where you live its gotta be pretty rare to lose peach buds to winter cold. I don’t think I’d be able to cover them myself btw, especially in the wind, I’m lucky the kids are willing to help
Winter of 2013-2014 was the coldest but I had some survived, last year was very cold but most survived.
This past winter there were only 2-3 nights of subzero but there were in a row and, I guess, the trees have been weakened from the two previous winters.
Looking at a bright side, my peach trees can save their energy this year.
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Yeah, plus you can always make a day trip down to Maryland in, say, late July early August and raid Scotts. 
, unless you see a headlamp bounding around, then abort. . . .
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smile:
So you covered a tree all winter//what variety? I was going to do that with my Saturn and by the looks of it, i should have. Winter took out most of its flowers… I might dig it back out of the ground and put it back into a container//prune it good to get some more new wood.
I’d wait for tomorrow to make any travel plans, I could lose a lot tonight. Current forecast lows are in the 25-27F range.
If you want to watch my suffering in real-time I just got my new weather station and hooked it up this morning:
https://www.wunderground.com/personal-weather-station/dashboard?ID=KMDBALTI116
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Are all your peaches flowering?
Yes they are all in bloom. All but apples and a few cherries and European plums are in bloom now, or past it.
Looks like it the rain is moving out. Couldn’t see any snow on your horizon.
I was worrying about the coming freeze, went out to look at the orchard and an enormous tree branch from my neighbors side to the north had crashed down on it!! It’s been quite windy. Crazy. One apricot took the brunt of it, miraculously, and even that is well above the graft. But no apricots for a while on that one.
So covering with leaves and branches should help for the freeze, right? 
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That’s cool Scott.
I depend on some PWS around me. At least it gives me a feel for what the temps are around me.
I did end up firing up the heater this morning. It got down to 31ish on some of the PWS I was checking, but when I got out and checked my cheap thermometers, they were colder. So I don’t know if the fruit got hit more or not.
Here is the makeshift heater contraption we put together. I originally rented 4 heaters, but one didn’t work, so I ended up going w/ three.
After trying this I really don’t think it helped much, so I probably won’t do it again. According to this kind of research, the trees have to be heated once every 8 minutes, which is impossible to do w/ such small equipment.
The big “Frostbuster” heats several rows at once, but these small heaters really don’t blow hard enough to do that, even though they put out a lot of heat.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7_q8UC5HWU
I’ve lit fires in the orchard and now tried these heaters. In the end I don’t know how much fruit will be left this year, looks like we still have one more frost left. I’m going to try to get a mild copper spray on. If anything it will help w/ bac. spot.
I really think the best approach to years like this is to plant varieties which are either late blooming, or bloom over a long period of time.
I wish this year was better for everyone. I don’t think the damage has been this widespread for everyone, since 2007, where all fruit crops were wiped out in the Midwest and much of the South.
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Ok I have an alarm set for 28F on my new weather gadget. I am going to wake up and go out with my 500,000 BTU weed flamer and warm things up if the alarm goes off. According to some site the tractor-pulled versions of propane flamers (Frost Dragon) can give you 3-4F of protection. I don’t see a BTU rating on those but they look more powerful than my flamer. But I can get mine closer to the canopy.
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You and I think alike Scott, except that sometimes I feel like I couldn’t be trusted w/ your flamer. Looking at some of these trees w/ no fruit, I might just turn the flame thrower on them. 
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Not all winter, I only covered 4 nights this winter, then was sure to uncover or at least vent my “bubble” once the temp was high enough. I’ve got Intrepid, Reliance, and Sweet Crimson (a zone 5 sweet cherry) planted in a fairly tight group so I can cover them all at once using one big piece of plastic and one 500 watt light if needed, whether a midwinter deep freeze or a post bloom frost.
Last winter my plan was to cover those 3 plus a Contender all winter (built a frame and everything), but that was a mistake as I realized too late that even though I was unplugging the light in the morning, it got too warm during the day when the sun was out ( basically 30 degrees warmer than outside air). Lost the Contender and the other 3 died back pretty much to the trunk. I did get about 50 nice peaches though, thanks to your encouragement to keep some trees in the garage.
Here’s a pic of the survivors today
Heres a not so great closeup of the flower buds
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Please report back Scott on how you like your weather station, I am considering the same model. The listing on Amazon says you can add a webcam to it. That might be pretty helpful in figuring out what kind of varmits are çoming out of the woods at night to steal fruit.
Mike-
So they were warming up way too much during the day and then plummeting at night… i wonder if a white tarp or something that would deflect light would work better (keep it cooler during the day)?
My tree garages are full of fruit buds …>The Robada looks like it will be one big flower it has so many swelling flower buds.