I have had 29 degrees, and 30 this past week and 28 last night with it 7 hours below freezing. Couldn’t find any green embryos at noon today. Apples are at pink tip mostly. Gravenstein and Mollies Pink are open and toasted looking. 7b/8a SE Virginia
2 Likes
That’s a bummer.! And unfortunately, there are going to be many more in the same boat soon. This massive March heat wave isn’t likely to work out well for many folks.
2 Likes
Most of my plums and pears had small fruit set.. got toasted … and have dropped off at this point.
I don’t grow peaches anymore.
I have found just a few survivors (still green and growing) on my plum trees. I hope they hang in there and ripen.
TNHunter
2 Likes
This should not be happening. What kind of peaches are you growing?
Some perform varieties can handle low to mid 20s in full bloom and early set.
This year has been a weird year. My June Gold failed for the first time in a decade. It wasn’t due to late frost, but because the warmth around Christmas caused the tree to pink bud in mid Jan. It bloomed during the last week of Feb as usual, but the low single digit temps appear to have ruined the buds.
My mid bloom period peach has done somewhat poorly over the years but did well this year. This tree experienced two nights of mid 20s during full bloom this year.
The contender peach has been behaving weirdly. It started to bloom 10 days ago, and it is in pause mode. The flowers haven’t moved in the last 10 days. I’ve never seen one bloom when the apples are blooming. Very late this year, but it generally produces.
3 Likes
Trees are leafed out and would be at shuck split without the freeze. Redhaven, Winblo, and Blushing Star. Definitely two weeks earlier than usual here.
2 Likes
Have you tried late blooming varieties like Loring?
1 Like
I cannot speak for all areas in the SE, but the Contender and the June Gold work well in NW NC @ 900’. I live in a river bottom where cold air settles. It has frosted at my place as late as May. Peaches are the easiest tree fruit for me.
The Contender is a very late bloomer. It’s a reliable bearer, vigorous grower, produces excellent fruit, and it the only peach I’ve ever grown that will produce fruit in the SE without any spray. 30% harvest rate with no spray.
The June Gold is a freak of nature. It can withstand temps down to 25 during bloom and once the fruit sets, you’re good down to 22. The JG typically blooms the last week of Feb during the false Spring. After the pistils fatten, it’s bomb proof. Three consecutive nights down to the low 20s, no problem. I’ve been growing these since 2010. I’ve only lost one crop, and it wasn’t due to frost, but due to pink budding too early.
4 Likes
I have been growing peaches since 1975 starting with Stark Compact Redhaven. Never seen peach fruit after petal fall survive with hours of cold in the twenties.
2 Likes
Really?!
In 2024, I had a pretty good crop and had about 5 hours between 25-30F right after petal fall.
Last night my peaches were somewhere between full bloom and petal fall (It’s about a week early). The house thermometer had several hours at 23F. The orchard thermometer battery died, but it’s only a few degrees different. I’m not sure much survived that but I’m hoping a few did. I guess I’ll know in a week or two.
1 Like
Rough one. The warm spells followed by hard freezes are the worst combination, everything wakes up early and then gets hammered. Hope your apples pull through at least.
2 Likes
We had 28 Fri night and 27 Sat night, peaches are right before full bloom. I checked a few buds yesterday on both of the trees down the hill, and they seemed okay. Both (Blushingstar and Contender) are supposedly cold hardy, so that may have helped.
We have a Redhaven and Coralstar up the hill, I’m guessing they came out alright. Will check more buds later this week to see if there was any real damage.
Luckily my peaches set very heavily, but my nectarines are toast. Go figure
Do you have sierra plum?
My peach blossoms are mostly gone, apparently frozen out. I thought I was safe since most of them survived a low of about 20. The several that I picked apart a couple days after that cold snap were still green inside. We haven’t had any lows below 29 since that happened, but most of the flowers didn’t survive for some reason. Any insights? I don’t have actual temperatures in the orchard. I’m feeling pretty discouraged at this point.
Sorry to hear that. I’ve seen blossoms look OK for days but then fail. A wild guess is only part of the fruit got damaged and it takes awhile to abort. I saw a fair amount of this last year but don’t recall much of it in previous years. Usually if the tiny fruitlets are still green a day later they are OK.
2 Likes
How long to set fruit? My peaches opened yesterday. No frost in forecast for 10 days. Is 12 days enough to set fruit?
In SE PA here. I picked a couple buds off my nectarine yesterday and they were still green on the inside and appeared to be fine to me. Both the nectarine and a peach are starting to leaf out while only a few flowers are showing pink and looking like they’re getting ready to bloom. So I’m not sure what’s going on with them?
Apriums both flowered the past few days with petals starting to drop and some other flowers that haven’t opened (…yet?) mostly more exposed at the tops of the tree. Jplums/Pluots are either blooming or about to start. Asian pears are about to start flowering. Juicy Jewel has flowers on it (finally) this year. Apples are showing flower buds. Early warmups make Spring weird.
1 Like
@XavierShalom … I do not have Sierra plum… no beach plums either. I do have a couple of American plums.. but not sure they are going to help my late frost situation.
I do have 2 JPlums (Shiro and AU Rosa) with several other varieties grafted on.. working on finding the latest bloomers.
JA Hybrids… Alderman, Waneta, Pipestone are looking like they may increase my odds.. they bloom quite a bit later than most JPlums.
I also have EU Plum… which blooms even later. It is just now about 1/4 bloom.
It has been planted since 2018 and no fruit yet. This could be the year.. I hope so.
TNHunter
1 Like
Wow those taken a while to fruit hope God helps you this year. Do you love the cold? You seem to have nice fish to fry in that picture hehe 
Hey im in between moving to a homestead and gotta plant the seeds as well as cuttings of what I get and almost starting from scratch even with fencing although thank God dad helped now with that to close the area with some barbed wire. Do you by chance have extra seeds of any of those stone fruits to share or fruits in general from leftover past seasons stuff like lettuces or do you sell cuttings of your current plums or other trees if you’d like to share what other ones you have and what you sell them for? Thanks btw
1 Like
@XavierShalom.. we do a lot of trading here over the winter months. I post a trade list.. listing all I have to trade… and what I need…
I shipped over 30 packages of scion wood, fig cuttings, etc…. Mostly in December, Jan and early Feb.
Most of the 30+ fruit trees I have .. I got the scionwood by trades… and grafted them to my own rootstocks, or purchased rootstocks.
I have a dozen varieties of persimmon, 5 working on 6 varieties of mulberry, 3 plum trees but many varieties added by graft. 3 apple trees but have grafts of chestnut, trailman, pristene, enterprise. 3 pear trees but 4 varieties added to them by graft.
My Mt Royal EU Plum.. has grafts of Green Gage added to it last spring that are blooming now. Adding varieties and pollinators.
TNHunter
1 Like