The Google weather site is calling for 35 or so, but I got caught by surprise on that recently. Things were definitely frozen, water included, and the predicted was 38.
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I haven’t seen any plum curcilio. The apricots I do have are still in the shuck. The orange red dropped a lot of flowers that I thought had survived the cold spell. There seems to be a few left. Tomcot fared better.
No curcs I have seen yet either. I am surprised your apricots have dropped shucks, @zendog … I had a couple shucks off on my earliest cot but that is it.
That recent warm spell probably got them going early. I was ahead on my grafting but now am behind since things took off so fast. I am going to be doing a lot of grafting in a few days when it starts to warm up again.
My Ilona was definitely ahead of Tomcot and Ilona has dropped shucks and while fruit varies in size some are around the size of a nickel already. Tomcot is just starting to drop shucks and has held more fruit. I actually think we may have gotten colder than you in that little cold snap, or possibly the timing was just worse for the stage mine were in.
I saw another poster from CT talking about no peaches this year, and then saw the CT extension send out a document about how to prune peaches in a “no crop” year and got worried. Evidently, most of the Northern areas hit -10 to -16F on Feb 4th. I’m far enough South and close enough to the water that I only got +1F (which is why I follow the mid-Atlantic thread more than New England).
So I should be OK (knocks on wood). My Apricots were at first white around April 1st and we’ve had a couple days with lows in the 28-30F range. Going forward looks pretty good with 2 more days in the high 30’s, then 40’s and 50’s (lows).
For highs, we have 2 more days in the 50’s and then:
So, I’ve started grafting peaches and apricots. At least the handful of varieties I’m adding. I’ve been grafting jujubes (couple dozen new ones) for the last few weeks.
I thought my stone fruits were safe… My summer delight aprium is at shuck split and has hundreds of little fuzzy green fruitlets emerging. My Hollywood plum is at petal fall and it looked like it had sailed through all the previous cold spells. My Saturn donut peach is currently in full bloom, so surely this was late enough to be ok? I thought I was safe, but then I woke up to this…
For those more experienced than I, what are your thoughts? Are my stonefruits doomed? It’s there anything I can do? All three trees were planted in spring 2020. The peach has fruited before, but this would be the first fruiting year for the aprium and the plum.
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I understand that keeping fruits well watered is helpful, since the soil temp would not drop as fast. A fish/seaweed foliar spray has also been found to be helpful. I have used sheets and burlap as wraps but it is easy to knock off blooms or fruitlets during draping or removal. A tall stick under the sheet is helpful to lift it up, especially when applying alone.
If I recall correctly we had a freeze very near mother’s day last year. It was the latest I can remember and was devastating to tender new fruitlets. I thought surely within days of the last frost would be safe but I was wrong. This may not be the last event of the year in 6b.
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The Reliance peach has not really fully opened its flowers. I guess that is why it is called Reliance. 
The adventitious peach’s flowers are all mostly open. I imagine it is going to be a bit of a crap shoot.
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I hope all your little fruitlets made it through okay. From most of the charts I’ve seen they should mostly okay be at those temps. It is only when you get to mid to lower 20s that you get large or complete losses. Hopefully if you had any impact, it would just be a little environmental thinning to help you out down the road.
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Where are those April showers? I hadn’t really noticed we were a lot drier so far this year, but now that I have all my potted figs, persimmons, pawpaws, etc. out and they are leafing out I realized I can’t just rely on the spring showers to keep them watered like I would most years. I took a look at the drought monitor and realized my county is “Abnormally dry” and the neighboring county is already in “Moderate drought.”
https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/CurrentMap/StateDroughtMonitor.aspx?VA
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Looks like apricots have made it through all the freezes. They are well thinned, but plenty out there.
Same here in regards to the apricots. They seem to be fine after the last two cold nights and both Tomcot and Orange red have little fruits growing. Ten day looks fine. Could be a bumper harvest for a lot of fruit!
We had a light frost the last couple mornings that definitely burnt some Asian pear blossoms. The majority look good though. This hot weather has most of my persimmons starting to swell their buds. Even my Honey Jar jujube is showing some tufts of green. The jujubes normally don’t show any signs of life until May in my yard.
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Thank you for checking in! There was some thinning, but there’s still a bunch left, so fingers crossed I can taste them this year!
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Hello and greetings!
I am interested in scions of those wonderful peaches. Please let me know how can I get them
Hello!
I am really sorry for your poms and worried for mine!
I have planted some Russian varieties and selected just by looking at zone suitabilty. One small plant of Wonderful variety was given as a gift and it grew well in 6b zone of Maryland but only gave one small pom after 3 years. Last year all buds were damaged by untimely cold and no flowers but later on only leaves appeared.
When I searched on internet for zone compatibility, it was not good for zone 6b. Now I have moved to zone 7A in Maryland, along with this tree. Also I searched for cold hardy trees to plant in new location. I purchased Salavatsky, Afghanisky, Kandahari, Texas Pink, Texas Red and Al Shirin Nor.
By your long experience can you please guide me whether they will do good here in zone 7A, Maryland or it is a wastage of time and effort?
I come from a very cold, very dry, snowy area high in mountains, 5600 feet above sea level. Poms, apricots, plums, almonds, grapes would grow at home without any problems. It had a deciduous fruit research center where American exper will come and do research on these fruit. Actually this center was a part of US aid program.
Hi @Pyardular, unfortunately I didn’t collect any scions for those two peaches while they were dormant, and now they are starting to leaf out, so I think it’s too late to get scions now? But, if you remind me in a few months, I can get summer budwood for you!
All these 80 degree days… anyone worried about plum curculio yet? @scottfsmith , have you started spraying apricots yet?
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Im also curious. I may start spraying tonight for PC. Nights have been staying warm which is concerning to me.
I thank you for quick answer!
It is always better to plant time tested varieties of a fruit plant. I will be thankful for summer buds well developed and suitable for grafting as I have some peach trees to graft. Thanks
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