My Apricot flower petals have almost all gone. Asian pear, sweet cherry, plum , are blooming, peaches start to bloom. The weather forecasted there will be few days that night temperature drop down to 29. Will this temperature hurt crops? What should I do to protect the fruitlets?
29 is no problem. If it starts getting much below that look here
http://orchardkeeper.com/pdf/IllustratedSpringFrostDamageThresholds.pdf
Scott, Thanks. This will save me from more pain and aches.
A little off topic but if a tree sends out blooms during its first year will it really matter if the temps freeze during bloom? My first year cherry has blossoms on it but I don’t intend to let the fruit mature. I was going to pull anything that didn’t abort itself. No harm will come to the tree other than the blossoms being frozen?
Same boat here… Starting probably Thurs morning through Sun morning…20Fs are possible. The GFS actually hints at mid 20Fs later in the week… not fun.
That is a freakin’ super great link Scott. I’ll keep that in my favs since it’s that time of year when I start worrying about this stuff. Any day now.
You might want to read the Peach Freeze Protection thread. Many of us south of you dealt with this last month and learned the hard way about some things that help, some that don’t, and some that make matters worse.
Good luck to all of you facing this go round. I hope your trees wind up damage free.