Life in Kansas! (Late Freeze)

That is great info!! Thanks so much for sharing! Between us all we gotta get up there and get some scion to preserve and test that tree!!
I definately will be looking for an excuse to be through there next Feb lol!!! :slight_smile:

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Yeah, I think somebody ought to be propagating it. For all I know it’s a random seedling, and I haven’t tasted enough fresh apricots to really know how it stacks up. But if it proves to be reliable elsewhere, that’s pretty valuable.

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It sure is!! I will take a dependable producer with poor fruit any day over one that makes great fruit every 10 years here in kansas we cant be too picky lol

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Our low was 30, we had about 1.5” of snow on the ground overnight. It’s already in the 40s and melting. Here are a few pictures from earlier this morning.

Sweetheart apricot

Surecrop cherry

A few of the mere handful of peaches that had bloomed

Pears…
Njiseiki

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Harrow Delight
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Sunrise
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Apples…

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We probably got 4" of wet snow. Most of it is already melted as of 1pm. Got down to 32 degrees last night. Tonight will be the the worst of it. Still calling for 28 degrees tonight.

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same here in the great white north. :wink:

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It’s definately warmer where @olpea @39thparallel are in the winter. @Olpea I’m sorry to hear this about your peaches it’s devastating. They are about a zone higher. My farm grows pears great most years and lots of other things as well. We grow contender. Flat wonderful, and reliance peaches. Last year we had no fruit from the trees. This year looks much better so far. The snow and these temperatures are not good but it could be much worse. Frost rings on the fruitlets are likely.

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Well in spite of damage, it looks like we should still get some fruit.
We got about 28 the first night and 26 the second.
Apricots are fried.
Kieffer Pear, about 50% bloom damage but look ok enough for a crop. Pitoma Slanopadja is young yet, but looks totally undamaged so that is a good incentive to graft another of it.
Sour cherry, looks totally undamaged to me:

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That’s great Paul! We recorded 30, 28, and 28 for Mon, Tues, and Wed nights. I didn’t check blossoms on anything today. I didn’t want to look :pleading_face:
I did get my new peach trees planted and it looks like we are in for some rainy windy weather now.

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We got down to 24 to 25F here. A lot of apple blooms looked bad after the freeze. I’m assuming pears are toast here. They had already bloomed out.

I noticed a lot of other areas around KC didn’t get as cold.

@clarkinks what temp did you get down to yesterday morning?

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29 was as cold as it got here, blooms still look good. I did find one thing out. I wrapped a few small trees and bush cherries with the white frost frost blankets like they sell at menards. Bad mistake, those trees look worse than the ones I didn’t do anything to. A double layer of it works good for asparagus, but not good for fruit trees.

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@Olpea About 27 - 28 degrees so I think.we are ok here. Last year was a total loss on fruit .

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I know Topeka said 27 degrees for the low a couple of nights ago. I am hoping that was accurate or that we were a little better off as we have most of our permanent fruit trees on a hill where it could have been warmer.

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Your close by , your pome fruit trees should be fine. As cold as it was last winter the reliance peaches still bloomed heavy. They are very resilient in this area. I’m not sure if the peaches will have some fruit or not. It’s all about location, wind and so on. At the hill top of my property peaches have blossoms at the bottom some peaches never blossomed.

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So i did an experiment this winter and wrapped a small peach tree. It almost killed it. The unwrapped one looks fine (no fruit of course, but its all leafed out). I just leave things now. Don’t care anymore :man_shrugging:

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@warmwxrules in our area rodents would use the wrapping as cover to.chew on certain trees. Apples are most rodents favorite.

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Yep, I think that is the way to go. I protected some super small hybrid persimmon trees with straw for just a couple days. Not sure what it all helped or if it helped anything. I did notice Gora Goverla is waking up from -17 and a long winters nap, so the straw didn’t hurt it atleast.

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I’ve tried to cover stuff in the past for frost protection. Many times i’ve come to find out the blankets/frost cloth has blown away or i just can’t really prove it did anything. Maybe with a heat source and proper coverings it would be enough. The past freezes this week i did nothing other then water the trees.

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@PaulinKansas6b

I’ve grown to expect that type of weather as it’s becoming the new normal. 2022 spring I’m assuming will be similar. I’m going back over everything we documented about this trying to learn the new trends and the best ways to deal with those trends.

Winter is starting very late this year

The droughts and floods can be the worst here not the cold. This thread is a must read if we plan to raise long term orchards in Kansas. Floods like the one in 1993 can be devastating! 1951 flood was worse Great Flood of 1951 - Wikipedia

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Great resource! Thanks! :slight_smile:

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