Much appreciated. Time will tell.
Yeah, that’s what I figured. Sigh.
Fingers crossed for some peaches, at least?
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The neighborhood weather station says it got down to 17 last night. My peach tree has a lot of buds at swollen bud and a few at calyx green, so I’m expecting my crop will be pre-thinned. Surprisingly, the apricots haven’t gotten as far along yet, except for a few flower buds. So long as that’s not a sign that the trees didn’t make it through the winter, I guess the cots will be in good shape.
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Those blossoms could have been ready to fall anyway. Wait for a day before assessing damage, the fruitlets will eventually turn mushy/brown if they are dead. Don’t go by the petals. Everything is looking “fine” on my trees now, but I’m sure it is not fine at all…
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Those temps won’t thin those buds at all. I’m starting to wonder if the MSU chart is accurate as it relates to critical temps at swollen bud and green calyx for peaches.
Our peaches were at that stage two weeks ago. It got down to 5F. I expected wide spread bud kill, but I can’t tell it affected the buds at all. They’ve seemingly gone on to develop normally. One caveat is that we had a few days of cold temps, prior to the 5F event. Plus buds had developed fairly slowly. Both of these may have contributed to increased bud hardiness.
The MSU “CRITICAL SPRING TEMPERATURES FOR TREE FRUIT BUD DEVELOPMENT STAGES” chart references a bulletin put out by WSU, for their peach bud development stage hardiness. (WSU EB0914)
See reference at the bottom of the MSU chart.
The WSU bulletin referenced can be found here (click the view button):
The bottom of that bulletin offers a “disclaimer” to the variance in actual field fruit bud survivability vs. predicted survivability of the bulletin. Among other things, the bulletin says that slower fruit bud development and slow acclimation to a major cold event can improve survivability of the buds. To wit:
“THE TEMPERATURE at which fruit buds are injured
depends primarily on their stage of development.
They are most hardy during the winter when they
are fully dormant. As they begin to swell and ex-pand
into blossoms, they become less resistant to
freeze injury.
Not all blossom buds are equally tender. Resistance
to freeze injury varies within trees as it does be-
tween orchards, varieties, and crops. Buds which
develop slowly tend to be more resistant. As a
result, some buds are usually killed at higher temper-
atures while others are resistant at much lower
temperatures. To indicate this range, a new set of
temperature values has been developed. It shows
the average temperatures required to kill I0 per
cent of the buds and 90 per cent of the buds as
found in research at the WSU Research and Exten-
sion Center, Prosser, from 1964-1970.
The range in temperatures at which buds are killed
is a factor in determining the need for frost control.
Orchards with a large number of buds should be
able to stand more frost than those with only a
light set of buds.
In using the temperatures, consideration should also
be given to weather conditions preceding cold
nights. Prolonged cool weather will tend to in-
crease bud hardiness during the early stages of bud
development.
These new values do not replace the temperatures
previously given, but provide additional information
on critical temperatures.”
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Sorry to hear that. At least hope your apples and Euro-pears are still OK.
No additional damage noted here since March-13, 14 cold spell…it got my earliest Asian pear and my neighbor’s peaches in bloom then. This time I’m blessed.
That’s interesting that peach tree looks more advanced than mine. We are about an hour apart, but mine don’t show any pink yet in their buds. I think Saturn is known for setting lots of fruit, so hopefully you’ll get a good crop even if a small amount of flowers pull through.
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It was 15.8F at my place this morning, and the probe is hanging 3 inches off house wall right bellow window. So I expect it was even colder on the ground. My covered apricot showed 31F though - right where I set my thermostat to be. Peach is at silver bud stage, probably will loose some if not all. Sweet cherry is in bud separation stage, not sure either about it…
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Thermostat? What did you have inside to heat it?
Thanks for the reassurance and extra info. I’d say we definitely had prolonged cool weather leading up to this event, and I’ve got a substantial number of buds that haven’t really swelled yet, so I’m probably OK.
@anon89542713, that’s brutal. I do find it interesting how consistently you’re a smidge colder than we are, even though I’m north of you and we’re both in fairly urban settings. Hopefully most of your stuff pulls through!
Hmm, I hope this helps me. This was not a sudden drop, it has been cold for several days now.
So far in the couple fruitlets I inspected the tissue all looks non-frozen. But I know from past experience to not get too hopeful.
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1 kw household heater
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My area is always colder. 3-5 miles either side - it is 2-3 degrees warmer. Not sure why…
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I can tell that fruit is good from the picture. The style, if I have that correct, is still plump. Indicating that the tiny fruitlet below is OK. The tiny fruit parts turn black/brown as soon as they thaw out if killed.
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Me too. Experience has taught me to be fairly pessimistic when it comes to stone fruit crops. I found the charts are pretty accurate once full bloom is reached. It’s only the pre-bloom critical temps which showed a big difference in actual bud mortality vs. projected mortality this year.
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I think my baby figlets outside and my apricot fruitlets did alright! I know that’s not a lot to worry about, but my past two years were really bad with the other fruits. Sometimes you do get lucky!
Just went outside to check, and my peaches and plums still look relatively unscathed, so fingers crossed that some survive!
My aprium, on the other hand, now looks like this:
I think the aprium is cooked.
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My Pluots , Apricots and some plums & some pears are toasted , while peaches / Nectarines , sweet cherries and apple are looking ok.
Pluots 03-29-22
Plums 03-29-22
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I remembered back that some of the male hornfaced bees started emerging a couple weeks ago from the bee house. Hopefully, they didn’t all freeze, or at least plenty stayed dormant. I saw a lot of another type of solitary bee at a local park swarming a flowering tree a couple weeks ago. It makes me wonder what their prospects for survival are with all this cold.
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