I’m wondering how much damage the week we had of abnormally cold weather (for us) this winter did to our apricot tree. There are small branches in various spots on the tree that have died which I’m not too concerned about. What I’m concerned about is that two of my scaffolds are growing normally and the other two had this weak, droopy leafing out that I hope I captured well enough in the pic. There aren’t any other obvious problems to be seen on the scaffolds and they still have green cambium. The affected scaffolds also don’t seem to be growing like the normal branches are now and the leaves are now drying out in places. Could cold have damaged the scaffolds causing this or is there something else I should be concerned about? If it is just cold damage, will the scaffolds heal with time or will there be a slow decline that could threaten the tree and I should remove them now? Thanks for the help
I feel your pain, the damaged cambian could be lower like I found on my tree a couple days ago.
How to recover this tree - General Fruit Growing - Growing Fruit
There is also a good those buds will just go dorment and regenerate. I wouldnt prune till you positivly know death is setting in.
I agree with kiwi. Leave it. I’ve seen them completely defoliate for the season and come back next year. When the branches no longer scratch green it’s time to go.
There are a couple of the larger branches coming off the scaffolds that have died up stream of some blackened areas on the branch. I will be pruning those off when we have a few dry days in a row on the weather report. I’ll hold off on any large scale pruning until next year in the hopes that isn’t an attempt by the apricot tree to up and die on us like they are want to do