We’re sitting at about 22 F, and tomorrow is supposed to be about the same. From there it looks like a warming trend right into May.
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What is the low for a Chicago Hardy? Just planted it this week and it is supposed to be in the mid to high 20’s tonight.
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Is the tree still in dormant or leafted out? If it has leaf then you need to dig it up and repot or else all the leaves will be burned by the cold and set the tree way back the whole summer. Unless you have a very large trash can and cover it up and put a brick on top to prevent the wind from blow it over.
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@robjohn,
My inground CH is protected under a big pile of peat moss ( that waht 8 had at ye end of last season. Then, it has two layers of tarp on top of it.
@tonyOmahaz5 is far more experienced fig growers than me, I’d listen to him. Mid 20’s is bad news for newly planted figs in ground.
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Thanks! My first fig, so no experience with them. It is only about a foot tall, so it will be easy to re-pot for another week.
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Without open flowers those temperatures won’t hurt a thing.
An ice covering won’t help. It offers zero insulation. What can help under the right conditions is constant water application. Enough that there is a big ice buildup and always unfrozen water on the buds. When water freezes heat is released. If you keep enough water in place that’s turning into ice that can keep the buds above freezing. If you stop water application before things thaw out in the morning then water application can makes things worse. It’s a complicated concept that can easily backfire. I did it once with good results but the tree was nearly crushed under the ice load. That was enough for me.
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Thanks for the chart. That’s awesome info.
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I find it funny on some of the weather related Facebook page as a visit. Any time snow is mentioned in the forecast in spring, somebody freaks out about their flowers.
It’s almost as if they don’t realize that a little wet snow at 37° is not going to hurt their plants, it’s the 27° low two mornings later that they really have to worry about.
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I lost most of my nectarine and peach buds the other night when temps went down to 17 F. The only ones that survived were the late buds that hadn’t started opening yet. Now it is supposed to get really cold again tomorrow night. Fingers crossed a cloud decides to hang out during the morning hours.
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thanks for the imput. Does make a lot of sense. really want to see some flower and fruit this year after going through arctic freeze last year.
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It is showing 29 as a low here for Tuesday night here… 
Do I need to bring in my potted trees that are grafted? I would rather not move over 60 of these but I would rather do that than lose some of them.
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Grafted trees that are not leafted out yet should be OK.
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Looks like we pretty much lost all the peach crop this year. On April 10th we got down to about 26 to 27F. Peaches were at petal fall at this stage. There were precious few left after that hard freeze.
This morning it got down to 27 to 28F. I’m sure that pretty much wiped out everything left. We still may get a few donut peaches, but that’s about all I expect.
These were fairly late hard freezes for us. Cherries and some apples are in blooms, so I expect these to be significantly impacted. Pears are in full bloom as well. Looks to be a pretty lean year for fruit growers in my area.
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Sorry to hear that. It got down to 22 degrees here in Omaha and I am in the same boat as you are. I guess I don’t have to spray for pests
too much this year.
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I would just bring in those grafts that took. I would not want to loose them to frost with all the hard work of grafting.
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I will gather them up and put them in the garage tonight. I need to rewrite all the labels for them as well. We got torrential rain yesterday and it sogged the tape, I used, up rather well…
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Sorry to hear that about the peaches. I hope that mine don’t do that as well…
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Mark and Tony,
So sorry to hear about so much fruit losses for both of you esp. Mark. This is your business so it does impact you financially.
Our next cold temp will be this Thurs and Fri. So far, it is supposed to be 31 F. Today, some areas in MA will get up to 70 mph wind. My area will be about 30 mph.
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Hi Olpea,
Would an orchard fan have worked at 26F? I assume they are too expensive for smaller commercial growers?
Spud
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