Orchard management after a killing freeze

General Fruit Growing
1

I had the misfortune of suffering a killing freeze (23 degrees) when most of my fruit trees were blooming. My question is how I should manage those trees this year.

For example, should I continue to spray to control fungal diseases and insects such as coddling moth?

Also, should I take this misfortune as an opportunity to prune the trees. Some of my trees are overgrown. Should I prune now, or wait until summer?

Further, should I try to save the few fruit that survived the freeze? It seems that may be futile because a few fruit per tree will be targets of insects, birds, etc.

Thanks for any recommendations.

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2

I was in this situation a couple of years ago, and my Ag Extension recommendation was to take advantage of such year and prune very hard (renewal pruning, which we typically don’t want to do when we have good fruit set so that we don’t lose the fruits). I would prune now, as trees grow best in the spring.

I would only spray for disease/pests that may be detrimental for tree health; cherry leaf spot requires me to spray a fungicide. Another example would be for peach tree borer.

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