Frost damage and the "lies" experts tell

I agree with you on this. I have all all three as well, they rarely say the same thing. If they do it is not for long. I also get the same thing with rain gauges. Not that there are different measuring types but standing side by side. They will be off by 1/4" to 1/2" + more at times. Different styles of rain gauges but you would think they would tell you very closely the same rain amounts. I though one was broken or had a crack in it. I checked it and it was not cracked. Sort of odd.

2 Likes

If it was just a temperature thing it would be easy. Here the mildest of winters can still manage to kill your trees. In the middle of January we usually have a meltdown with temperatures climbing into the high 40ā€™s and beyond for a week or so, followed by sub zero temperatures. Anything dumb enough to shed winter hardiness ends up either dead or with a ton of winter damage.

2 Likes

There is a reason most of our nectarine production comes from California. It is such good growing conditions there for them. Right now we have created a issue where a lot of our fruit is either created in California or Chile. The issues were are seeing with that now is that of transportation but in the event something happens like a bunch of late freezes, pests or fungus decimate either California or Chile in the future we are going to have issues with certain fruit or vegetables we get. I know apples can create more buds though. I am in a gardening group for my state and it seems as though every spring our trees flower and then a frost happens. People take to the group to complain about how their blossoms will get frozen off every year only to find they often times still get fruit.

Or peaches. Same with peaches. It is hit or miss here with peaches. This year with the frost/freeze temps no peaches.

It comes down to the fact that we need breeders to develop good high chill varieties for the parts of the country that are not California.

Yes, the 19 degree day appears to have killed my Early Blush apricot that was a couple of days ahead of the others I have growing against two walls of my house. I believe lots of trees, but especially apricots get killed in early spring hard frosts here.

I guess I will give up on having cots in June here.

The problem is that so few of the good ones make it east. They can grow them perfect but tend to sell them picked too early and watered down, and now you never know if you are buying low-acid ones which really taste bad with brix under about 16. At the farm markets there you can usually get fantastic ones.

Alan, my condolences for your crop. That sounds really frustrating. Iā€™m looking at almost no pears this year after things seemed to be picking up last year, perhaps because of our cold wet spring and no spray. I think no Shipova either. At least Iā€™m not accustomed to big crops of those things yet.

As far as the lack of expressed sympathy in the responses, perhaps if your original post had made mention or implication of how you felt about the loss, others would pick up on that cue that expressions of sympathy were welcome, or indicated and respond accordingly.

4 Likes

I was very disappointed with CA farm stand fruit. Most was just commercial fruit that they bought and resold. In 4 years I got almost no good fruit bought in CA in and around Fresno and Reedley, the heart of stonefruit production.

I do think there are a few small growers that sell top quality fruit at the upscale markets in the rich communities. Out in the ā€œpoorā€ areas there was very little really good fruit.

1 Like

If there was no challenge in growing fruit, many of us would get bored with it and have nothing to write about here. On the other hand . . .

2 Likes

And here as well. I lost as many apricots to late freezes (after warm spells) as I did to eutypa. I donā€™t even try to grow them any more.

These are different than farmerā€™s markets which tend to have enforced rules- at least the few Iā€™ve been to. When my father was still alive, Iā€™d always go to the Santa Monica farmerā€™s market as a kind of pilgrimage when I visited him in Topanga late in the harvest season- extremely well tended with lots of very proud fruit growers with small farms. Same thing in my Sisterā€™s neighborhood way up north where weā€™d go to the Arcata farmerā€™s market- though the selection was not nearly as good up there. Been a while- used to visit my sister mostly because my Mother was nearby.

A couple years ago my nect crop failed also and my wife found some excellent CA nectarines at Cosco right here in NY. Must have been about 25 brix. On the box was the claim that the white spots on the skin was from high sugar inside.

3 Likes

I agree with you about fruit stands. Even along the highways her in Ohio and also going from Ohio to SC, GA, FL and over to LA. I see the fruit stands where they are along the road with little home made signs. They list it as " Home Grown Fruit" and then you stop and see the back of the pickups or in the vans boxes of commercial produce. Some of the fruit was supposed to be local but there is probably no way the produce is either that early ripened or that late ripened and staying fresh ( I say probably because I cannot say for certain). I see peaches that are " Homegrown" in April or May along the roads.
Not matter when you go through GA there are trucks that say " Fresh Crop Pecans". Are there really pecan trees that have three and four crops of pecans year round? Probably not.

1 Like

I checked out my Rich May (AKA Flavorich, so I think that is what you mean by Flavor May) and it had about a dozen fruit on the graft. Last year I over-cropped it with ~25 fruit on the branch, so I may have gotten just the right amount of frost damage that I wonā€™t need to think much to get higher quality fruit.

From this pic, you can see quite a few failed blossoms. It looks like about 20% of them actually set.

A not-so-good amount of thinning took place on my Golddust, where there was only 1 fruit left on the tree. It is on Citation, so it isnā€™t a huge tree, but 1 fruit is still disappointing.

I donā€™t have many nectarine trees, so I didnā€™t immediately notice the trend. But, the one large nectarine has almost no fruit (just some on one of the peach grafts on it). I do see a few nectarines from a graft on a peach tree, but even there arenā€™t many. Do the fuzzy coats give peaches an extra bit of insulation? :slight_smile:

I lost 2 more apricots in my yard (though I think they died over the winter, as I never saw any green), but none of the young ones at rentals were impacted. Part of this is that it generally takes 3-4 years before they die for me- right about when they get productive. But, the ones that died this year werenā€™t that large or healthy, so I just planted a jujube in their place and moved on. I still have a few apricot trees (and grafts) at home, but Iā€™m not planting any more.

While Iā€™ve (mostly) given up on apricots at my place, Iā€™ve been planting them at the rentals (hoping to find a site where they do well) and they seem good so far. 3 of the 8 I planted last year were Early Blush just because they are so darned early (around June 20th the one time I harvested some). If I can ever get a consistent crop from apricots, there wonā€™t be any need for early peaches.

Iā€™m talking specifically about Early Blush, which bears fruit about 2 weeks before my next earliest cot. Alfred was planted against my wall 20 years ago and is my strongest most reliable tree- you should try planting or grafting Alfred. It has as good a fruit as any, just a bit small and a tendency towards scab, which can be controlled. Cummins told me long ago that it was the most reliable of all trees being looked at in Cornellā€™s breeding program.

Last year I got my cots without insecticide and I havenā€™t sprayed them with it yet this year. Iā€™m waiting to see if they start getting damage- PC usually only attacks more immature fruit than what cots are by the time PC comes out in my neighborhood. Cherries only need a single spray, it seems.

1 Like

Depends on what the plant is doing at the time. If dormant, maybe they will make it. Bud break, all bets are off. Got down to 26 here in mid March. Burned back about everything that was budding or blooming. Got my blueberries and satsumas that were blooming. Killed back my mulberry. Pecans were still dormant, so not much affect.

I think a lot depends on the condition of the tree, the weather leading up to the frost, how it shut down the previous fall, how quickly it thaws out after going below 32, how long the frost lasted, etc. Freezing point depression is taught in chemistry classes - if you add salt or sugar to pure water it lowers the temperature at which the water will freeze. I would think that if the tree was able to build up sugars or other compounds before the freeze it would be somewhat protected.

1 Like

But how many of you suspected that trees can flower beautifully even though the blooms have been sterilized by cold that killed the ovaries? And without any clear evidence of that destruction. Whatā€™s more, that the destruction does not occur in a way the chart suggests- that a threshold from survival and total destruction of the ovaries can actually be a matter of probably not more than 2 degrees.

I am seeing much the same damage in sites generally warmer than mine.

I am also seeing that Methely may be by far the most successful J. plum this season of any, including Shiro. AND ITā€™S THE EARLIEST PLUM I GROW.

Last year my nectarines were thin but I got enough. This year I will have to thin. Looks like an excellent crop. I have read a lot of accounts of good white Nectarines. Many described as better than Arctic Jay. I never had those I have only had Arctic Jay and it was the best nectarine I ever had. The graft is loaded this year as it is almost a fully formed scaffold now. Full is sugar yet has a kick. And the fruit is so beautiful looking.
No losses here this year. Second year in a row.
Iā€™m just glad I live here, out of nine years of stone fruit only one year of no fruit. Other years damage was small and not complete if any at all.

2 Likes

Not sure what happen here but I had very little thinning to do on my peaches. They were heavy loaded last year so maybe they are taking a break. The bad part is one scaffold has few and other scaffolds have many empty shoots but other shoots loaded. Unbalanced. On that tree, Iā€™m leaving the spacing a bit tighter.

Two years ago we had a late frost and of the 3 red havens, we only picked 200 peaches. Most were on one tree and just one side. They are all in a row east to west spaced 20 ft. The west tree is always a few days behind the other 2 trees.