My four greenhouse Orangered trees with 1300 Utah chill hrs had not a single flower that opened. They had flower buds but they didn’t open. The two outdoor trees are going to have maybe 10 open flowers out of at least 1,000 flower buds. Last yr the greenhouse trees had a few open flowers and outdoors opened 10-20%.
This sure sounds like a chilling issue. But I’m totally at a loss to explain how my greenhouse trees won’t bloom. Either it’s something else or the Utah model doesn’t work for this fruit or maybe it needs more than 1300 hrs. Virtually every night for 75 straight days was 38-45F for 12 hrs. Temperature seldom exceeded 58F during the day. That seems like a lot of chilling to me but maybe it needs a 5 month winter, not 2.5 months.
On your recommendation I bought an Orangered. My tree now four years old has many buds on it but is it too early to flower. Last year all of the fruit dropped (I thought only because it is a young tree; that has happened with ninety percent of my young trees/ stonefruit: plums, peaches and apricots). This year I have had freezing and lower temps this winter and it seems to like it. I think it might be a chill issue. I’ll know more in a month.
My Orangered is in a 15 gallons pot and overwinter in a unheated tornado shelter and full of flower buds. I will bring it outside in late March. I will update if it blooms for me.
