How has your orchard done? (Spring 2026)

General Fruit Growing
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I did a survey of the orchard yesterday. Lots of late frost here.

Looks like all pears (Asian and Euro) did poorly.

Cherries poor.

Apples look promising on most of the trees, at least they have set some fruit.

Peaches set some fruit but could have been a lot more. Just a handful or two for most trees.

How do your mulberries do? Are mulberries pretty reliable or does frost take them out in your local. I planted some mulberry this year. They are young and not doing much for now.

How has your orchard done?

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Freeze here in Southern Illinois got all my peaches and my 2 plums. Pears are not old enough to fruit yet. Apples seem to have set a decent amount of blooms.

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Our peaches were hit hard but I don’t recall any one event other than a long cold winter. Two of the 3 peaches very thin fruit set, the other heavy and will need thinning.

Four Tart cherries look real nice with the young trees first heavy fruit set.

Apple tree has it’s first fruit set this year, but just a dozen or so.

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4

Pollination has been off for apples. Blueberries unexpectedly setting a good crop after being dug up and moved to pots.

Bananas both growing well and pupping. Figs so-so. Lemon Fig cuttings are slow growers. Have a mess of SBT to set; but need more dirt…lol

Still have a hundred or so Apple scions to graft. Aggravated with G.969 rootstocks. Half have lousy roots.

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forgot plums…mine are toast

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my mtn ash converted pear was covered with blooms with 4 cultivars on there last spring but none set. i dont think we had any frosts when they bloomed so not sure what happened. hopefully this year i get a full crop. might try pollinating them myself although i had bumbles on my haskap nearly a month earlier so that shouldnt be a issue.

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my Meiwa kumquat looks good.

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Mixed bag here too. My apple trees set well but the pears barely did anything, seems like a common theme this year. Cherries got caught by a late frost so not expecting much from those. The one bright spot is the plums actually, first decent set in three years.

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9

Frost least night killed the new growth tips on pawpaw and Concord grape. Everything else seemed to do fine.

Previous Winter weather killed must of the branches on my pineapple guava.

Cold Hardy citrus were mostly not hardy enough to survive the cold. US942 on it’s own roots looks dead, Kabosu is dead, Indio Mandarinquat is dead, Thomasville is dead, Yuzu top is dead the TF rootstock survived. Some Yuzu seedlings died back, but one is resprouting from near the base above ground.

Peach blossoms were half or more killed. It looks like the apricots, plums, and surviving peach that flowered already and set fruit have surviving fruitlets growing, but they could turn yellow and drop after the freeze. Asian pears finished flowering already and seen to have sweet fruit fine. Apples seem maybe 20% not flowered yet, but the ones that finished seem normal.

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Sounds like you had a rough winter. How cold did ur area get during the winter?

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Things are going well in our zone! (7b, high desert Albuquerque)
The stone fruit set beautifully! Nectaplum, Peach and Nectarine are all very happy. The apricot has a singular fruit, but it’s only in it’s third year so I will take it!

My cherry trees are also three years in the ground, and they have all set a good amount. The Rainers look better than the Bing does.

My Ouachita blackberry is positively radient! Covered in blooms and growing like MAD. I counted 250+ buds, so I am excited for a large crop this year! Still waiting on my currants to bud, but the foliage looks amazing! I’m not sure how long it takes for them to bloom after they set leaves, does anyone know?

My figs, Desert King and Strawberry Verte, are woken up but no fruit yet, same for my Wonderful Pomegranate.

All and all, things are looking great over here, and its so warm that I put my tomatoes in the ground yesterday. Hoping for a strong monsoon season this summer!

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most of the snow is gone here, except a few drifts . no cold or vole damage . still too wet to get to the one up the hill. been pruning and fertilizing. will start to graft / spray next week. even the haskap are still dormant as we havent hit 60 yet and very few 50’s. none in the forecast either. at least its drying out and giving me more time to get things done. once they start breaking dormancy i have less than 5 days to complete mentioned. its nuts some years. the more you add, the more you toil come spring.

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I did a quick survey myself, pretty disappointing. I thought the apples and pears would do fine not so. Even the reliable orient pear is very light. The Kieffer, Ayers, Anna apple,Ein Shemer apple and Santa Rosa plum all a big fat Zero

The two worst looking trees in my Orchard are doing great again this year. The La Feliciana peach and the La Peche peach are loaded .

They are six years old now, but they been producing since they were three years old. The trunks look so bad on these trees I just decided to plant a couple replacements last year since I had a couple of slots. So when these two fall over, I will still have something that produces quality fruit

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This was the first year most of my trees flowered well, which is exciting, but it froze for the apricots and is about to freeze again for the pears and plums. Interestingly it might be the peaches that nailed the gap

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15

Mixed bag here in the UK. The apple blossom came through fine but the pear was lighter than usual, not sure if it was the cold snap in March or just an off year. Plums look promising though, first time in three years they’ve set properly. Fingers crossed the late frosts stay away.

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We had a pretty cold night a few nights ago. I don’t have a thermometer in the yard, but the local weather stations had lows down around 26 while my apples were blooming. I haven’t dealt with a frost like that during bloom before, so I’m new to that.

Honeycrisp and Golden Delicious both had a strong bloom this year, and now I am seeing a good amount of frost damage on the flowers. I am hoping for a decent little crop on few trees I have.

Other than that, I’ve been happy with how my new planting has come together. All of the trees I planted a few weeks ago are awake and still leafing out.

Some pics of the frost damage:

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17

Looks like it is going to be a good year for persimmons. JT02, Kasandra, H63A, Barbaras blush, Prok and Cardinal are loaded with blossoms.

IKkJiro and Nikitas Gift have blossoms.. but just a few here and there.

Saijo and Journey and Dar Sofiyivky have several inches of growth now and so far no blossoms found. May be another year for them.

My mulberries are loaded with fruit now. Ate a couole gerardi fruit yesterday. Lawson Dawson should be ripening soon, Kip Parker, Silk Hope have good fruit set… Oscar has some fruit but less than others.. it came out a little too early and got frosted.

We are picking strawberries and goumi Daily now (only Red Gem so far).

I have fruit set on apples… and have my CM traps out.

Frost early/mid March took out most possibly all my Jplums, JA Hybrids, and my Pears.

I do have some fruit set on my EU plum Mt Royal… My Lapins Cherry and Montmorency cherry.

Goumies .. Carmine, sweet scarlet, raintree select are all loaded with fruit.. just not ripe yet.

Blackberries and Blueberries and Raspberries are all looking good.. good fruit set, sizing up.. will ripen later.

CHE are looking good.. will set fruit a bit later and ripen this fall.

Your question on Mulberries.. last year just after my mulberries broke bud and had some growth out (first flush berries and some leaves).. we got a 35F night. It took all leaves and fruit off 4 of my trees.. only Lawson Dawson first flush of fruit survived.

The rest of my mulberries produced little fruit last year after that first flush of berries got toasted. 3 or 4 weeks later they sent out more leaves.. but little to no fruit.

Late frosts can definately cause problems for your mulberries.. and it does not have to be below 32F… my mulberry leaves and first flush fruit on Gerardi, Silk Hope, Oscar, Kip Parker.. got toasted at 35F.

Only Lawson Dawson retained leaves and first flush of fruit

Lawson Dawson, Kip Parker, Silk Hope and Oscar are all in the same location in my orchard… and only Lawson Dawson retained first flush of leaves and fruit with that 35F night.

TNHunter

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Most of my trees overset last year. Frost got nects, cots and plums this spring, but it looks like I’ll have apples pears and cherries.

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I had some of my apple trees overset last year as well. This year most of my trees were in bloom and we had two nights of “ freeze warning”, temos in the low 30’s and high 20’s . Just in passing it does look like a lot of the blooms did not take. I have to get a closer look at them all to see what damage was really done and if I will possibly have any fruit this year.

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new zealand lemonade

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