Not awesome. I got down to 31 the last two nights. Persimmon buds are just greening up so I’m sure there will be some damage there. Forecast is for 30 tomorrow night, so I think my stone fruit will be fine. But the persimmons, they didn’t set much fruit last year because of a late frost. Really hoping they don’t get nipped again.
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There won’t be any freezes tonight. It should be a relatively mild night ahead of the cold front arriving tomorrow.
If you’re seeing subfreezing lows on your apps for tomorrow it’s likely because the min for the day will be late PM at midnight.
How far along do you think is too far? My in-ground trees have buds greening up, but I’d say they’re still mostly in the bud scales. Some of my potted grafts woke up earlier from indoor storage, and are more or less out of the buds. Those I’ve presumed to be not frost hardy and am keeping them inside at night until this all blows over.
The in-ground persimmons are small enough that I should be able to cover them without too much trouble. Don’t know if they’re even big enough to fruit yet, but I’m really hoping this is the year I get to try some.
I’m not sure. Unlike last year, when my persimmons had already grown an inch or so when we had our late frost, this year the buds are fully green but haven’t opened yet. I guess it’ll be a learning experience.
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Same here, sometimes it’s nice to be late. But I’m still concerned we could get a May freeze like last year. I have a ton of first year buds I hope don’t get zapped.
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Just saw that it will be 32 F in Boston on Thurs and Fri, two nights in a row. We usually a few degrees lower than Boston. If it goes below 30 F, I will see some damage esp, apricots and Japanese plums since they are more advanced and easily damaged by low temp at this stage.
I did not have any peaches, nectarines or J plums last year, either. Only E plums survived. This year every peaches, nectarines and apricot have been blooming.
The two nights in a row of low temp concerns me.
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The forecast seems to be jumping around for me… apple say it will be low 25F on thursday morning, weather.com app says 27F low. I have 1 peach and 1 Nectarine neither have ever produced so far, not feeling great about the forecast really. Heres how they looked on saturday.
In over 30 years of growing fruit here, it is vary rare year where we didn’t get some freezes through April. As I keep saying, I haven’t had a problem with freezes above about 24F that I’ve observed. The killing freeze last year was in the first week of Feb. Here it got down to about 7F which is not a particularly significant low for early Feb- in a test winter that might be -20F a couple of decades ago, which would tend to wipe out stone fruit. However, a warm winter up to that point left buds overfull of water which caused ovaries to rupture, apparently.
Some of my peach and a lot of my nectarine crop was wiped out as was most of the J. plum crop but peaches and E. plums generally did OK- that is the majority had a full crop although not every variety.
I don’t think previous weather is much a factor once you get to spring- the cells are always going to be full of water, I guess. I haven’t found newly formed fruit to be noticeably more vulnerable to cold than open flowers and most years we get some frost here through April. Just, please, don’t let it get below 25F.
Apricot fruitletts can take some frost, based on my experience.
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Forecasts for here in the Finger Lakes are uncertain. No surprise. Predicted lows for the next two nights on the phone app have now improved to 29° and 31°, but the weather service still calls for 26° and 29°. They rarely agree, and neither has a consistently better record for getting it right. We are in a frost pocket, so we can expect lows of 2 to 5 degrees lower than what’s forecast. Only plums and peaches have reached full bloom, and not all have. I’m taking a wait-and-see attitude. We used to get quite successful peach crops about once in three years; now it is more like one in five.
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Based on my current forecast, I’m not going to worry about the in-ground persimmons, but will keep the potted trees in the sun porch for the next couple nights. Here are my gut feelings on what stages are vulnerable:
Probably safe:
Not sure, but could probably take a light frost:
Danger zone:
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Apple says 25 yesterday now at 27 here while weather underground is consistently calling for 30. The norm here is running 1-2 below Apple usually, so probably getting 25 or lower.
Hopefully they’ll pass with flying colors! My Prok is about there as well.
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We just got a decent little rain. I’m hoping the extra thermal mass of the water will nudge things in my favor.
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Unfortunately not likely this go around. This will be a cold, dry airmass advecting in this evening and any surface moisture should evaporatively cool the low levels. Any moisture that survives the point when the wetbulb 0C is reached will freeze. Yeah that provides a little latent heating, but the cold advection will easily overtake that.
It kind of is what it is now. Hopefully we keep a little wind through sunrise so we don’t radiate and drop a quick 5°F in the final couple hours. At least legit warmth is arriving early next week.
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Hmmm… as much as I don’t want you to be right, you make a good point.
Im surprised youre so ahead of me. My persimmons arent showing much betond a little bud swell. Maybe a bit of heat island effect? We also had snow on the ground. I have Cornus mas and Tlor tsiran apricot/cherry plum hybrid blooming. About 1/2 of the apples are pushed. A couple of asian pears have flower buds unfurling. Im glad to see mulberries and persimmons holding out still Theyre calling for 26 here both nights. I had 23 here last year on May 18 and still managed to harvest one peach. Everything else tree-wise was zapped except some euro pears.
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Definitely. I’m just outside of downtown, on the south side of a hill, a few miles from the Mass border, in the second largest city in the state, and away from the brunt of the moderating coastal influence. So basically one of the warmest spots in the state!
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The newest prediction says 29 F in my area. I hope the fact that I live in a densely populated area, with houses next to one another, will help prevent temp to go that low.