Fruit trees progress as of 4/8/23:
Red haven peach bloomed bt. 28 degree nites-missed the worst of cold- looking good.
Same with Santa Rosa and Burbank plums.
Stanley just opening now, same with Bartlett.
So far so good, better than last year with respect to frost/ freeze damage.
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Anyone else keeping a close eye on the forecast? Temp is supposed to get down to 32 here tomorrow night. That’s getting pretty dicey for my liking since all that warm weather recently produced a fast flush of growth from most plants. My Shenandoah pawpaw had flowers open up and turn full maroon color a few days ago, earliest I’ve seen it bloom. 32 isn’t too bad for most plants (pawpaws, apples, and such should be fine), but I’m most worried about the persimmons.
My Prok and Yates are leafing out at this point, as well as JT-02(which is disappointing since I thought it was later to do so and I grafted it to Prok for that reason). Lehman’s Delight has swollen green buds that are close to leafing out. Rosseyanka has green buds that haven’s swollen yet. Nikita’s Gift is still dormant at least. Will be putting ambrosia beetle traps out tomorrow just in case.
My grapes are leafing out, they are probably the ones that will get hit the hardest.
I see lows of 32 for 5 of the next 10 days. Not great, but at least it’s not 15 like this day was last year.
As long as we don’t go any colder I’m hoping it will be ok.
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My pears, Newtown Pippin apple, and North Star pie cherry are in full bloom! Other apple trees are holding back with a bloom. Fingers crossed!
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My figs stayed out and some leaves were fried a few days ago. I trimmed those off, it will buff out. It looks like I have low 30s forecasted one time next week. Hoping to find some pollen for my Shenandoa pawpaw and that it doesn’t get frosted.
A reminder in case anyone is free and an early bird, I’m speaking about fruit growing tomorrow morning. Register at Forbes State Forest website, I believe the link is also on Facebook.
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We had a pretty good frost that morning and it got down to at least 30. I had brought the figs in the garage but left a few extras out to see if how they would handle it. No damage on them or the persimmons or any other plants, so that’s 1 bullet dodged. Ambrosia beetle traps are set out just in case. A low of 30 is scheduled for Monday night. Hoping it doesn’t go any lower. If I do start to see damage, I’ll spray Pyganic on the trunks.
My Shenandoah has loads of flowers in full bloom with some at the male stage now. Allegheny is close behind. Chappell and Wabash are getting close as well.
Let me know if you want some pollen from any of my trees, Ryan. We could meet up halfway or I could mail some if you know a safe method to do that. Good luck with the presentation tomorrow!
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Good luck, Ryan! If it’s recorded let us know. Would love to see it.
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Thanks guys, it went pretty well. I didn’t have enough time to really dig into variety selection but gave a good baseline on first year care and the basics.
@TJ_westPA I’m going to be working in Parker along the Allegheny River next week, Depending on my route I could possibly meet around Kittanning. Let me think on it. I’m trying to get to some local patches to snag pollen if it’s available before taking drastic measures! Regardless I have scion available for some stuff you probably want to get.
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I wonder if there are pawpaws near Parker. I haven’t looked that far north along the Allegheny, but I know some have been found further north than that. I was near Templeton on Thursday and there are a few patches along the river there. None were further than the green petal stage yet, but they have been developing quickly.
Sure thing. Feel free to message me if you want to meet up. I have a bunch of extra figs of different varieties that I started from cuttings or air layers last year if you’d like any. Also some different native plants if you have interest in those. Seeds too.
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Tuesday morning temps keep getting revised down. I hope things start going the other way in the next 24 hours. Forecast at 29 here, already lost 50% of my peach blooms from the earlier cold snap, hope I don’t lose too many more.
At least the cool temps are keeping pest and fungus pressure low.
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Well Tuesday was brutal. How did everyone do?
All my grapes are toast. Might have killed the whole vine.
Lost some more peaches too and I think about half my pears but it’s hard to tell, they might pull through.
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That stinks. Grapes can send out secondary and even tertiary growth, though. Those will have less fruit buds than the primary growth, but you still might get some fruit depending on how large your vines are. Yours had quite a bit of growth already. I’m an hour west and most of my Concord types just broke bud. Somerset was the most advanced at about an inch or so of growth.
I had grapes look like your picture before and they came back okay that year. It took awhile but I’m pretty sure I even got some grapes that year.
Sorry to hear about the grapes and peaches. Got down to 27 or 28 here. I think my peaches and plums might be ok but it’s hard to tell, sometimes the flower/fruit damage isn’t apparent right away and there is a delay before they fall off. Apples and pears appear fine. No foliage damage on any of those.
Unfortunately my persimmons and pawpaws got hit pretty hard.
Any pawpaws that were pushing green leaf buds had those killed, which was most of them. Pawpaw flowers didn’t show damage right away but most of the flowers that were opened up are dying off. The nice thing with pawpaws is that they typically stagger their blooms over a long period of time so there are still flower buds that were dormant that will have a chance.
All my American persimmons had all their new growth killed (Prok, Yates, and Lehman’s Delight). JT-02 also had all it’s new growth killed. The other hybrids (Nikitas Gift and Rosseyanka) didn’t have any damage since they are later to push growth and only had slightly swollen green buds. Looks like no persimmon fruit yet again this year. That’s 3 times in the past 4 years that Prok had it’s new growth killed by a frost/freeze and won’t fruit. I’m starting to wonder why I grow them lol. The Americans (and apparently JT-02) push growth too early and the other hybrids have been slow or reluctant to hold on to any fruit.
Here’s hoping none of the pawpaws or persimmons get hit by ambrosia beetles!
On a positive note, the medlars didn’t suffer any damage, which surprised me. They got hit hard by the late freeze in May of 2020, which ruined any chance of fruit. They have loads of flower buds developing too, which don’t appear damaged at all.
Also, potted figs are great since I can shuffle them in and out of the garage lol.
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Hi all! I would like to join this regional chat. I’m in NE Ohio so this is the closest regional group.
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I am also in NE Ohio; there is also an “upper southeast” thread that includes the Ohio Valley, which depending on how north you are may include your area. I read that thread and this one primarily.
I am interested in sharing apple tasting notes. Last fall I tried to try as many variety’s from local orchards. I’ll post the notes if anyone is interested. Also interested in local sources of persimmons.
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Persimmons are few and far between in the Pittsburgh area, except for the ones that members here are beginning to establish.
They grow wild on my recreational property in SE Ohio. I have found a few in the middle of Ohio which seems the limit of their natural range here (pre climate change).
So I sampled as many apples in local orchards last fall over a couple months and assigned my purely subjective taste scores. I have to say I am jealous of the apple tasting out West Monterey Bay Apple Tasting 2022 – Rankings and Highlights (72 Apples) | California Rare Fruit Growers It would sure be nice to have a similar thing for different zones/regions since I believe from what I have read that the results would be different. I would be very interested in orchards which have some of the great apples that are not on the list.
Dates are date of orchard visit (not when they were picked). i know a number of these may be better if left to develop in the refrigerator. but…
8/3/2022
Lodi 2/10
yellow transparent 3/10
earligold 2/10
8/8/2022
centennial crab 8/10
8/13/2022]zestar 4.5/10
paula red 6.5/10
8/23/2022
sansa 6.0/10
burgundy 7.0/10
ginger gold 5.5/10
st. edmunds pippin 8.0/10
chenango strawberry 6.8/10
zestar 9.0/10
pink pearl 4.5/10
9/3/2022
hoycrisp 9.5/10 (i know a lot of you hate it)
tenty ounce 6.0/10
gala 7.0/10
summer rambo 7.0/10
sweetie 7.5/10
9/11/2022
blondie 7.2/10
red cortland 7.0/10
molly 6.8/10
9/24/2022
rubinola 7.0/10
jonatahn 6.8/10
mcintosh 9.0/10
rubinette 9.6/10
crimson crisp 6.0/10
crimson red 6.5/10
pixie crunch 5.5/10
rosalee 5.5/10
karmijn de sonnaville 10/10
ambrosia 8.0/10
jonagold 7.2/10
10/08/2022
grimes golden 7.0/10
king david 8.0/10
swiss gourmet 8.5/10
winter white pearmain 8.2/10
ermin bauer 7.0/10
cortland 7.0/10
pinosa 7.5/10
rhode island greening 6.0/10
crimson gold 7.9/10
holiday 7.0/10
shizuku 6.5/10
elstar 8.0/10
11/6/2022
winesap 8.1/10
northern spy 8.5/10
ambrosia 6.5/10
melrose 6.0/10 (grocery store in january here are much better)
ny248 7.5/10
pinklady 6.0/10
jonathan 8.0/10
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Hey everyone! I have a bunch of extra potted Figs that I don’t really want to take care of all summer, so I’d like to sell or trade them locally.
Asking for $6 each for most and $3 for a few that are small rooted cuttings from last year. I might also be interested in trades since I am always in need of things like pots, coco coir, fertilizer, certain scions and seeds, etc. I live near the town of Rural Valley, which is between Kittanning and Indiana, PA. I’d prefer to meet either in town or at my place. I can drive to Kittanning or Indiana to meet up but I will charge a $20 driving/gas fee since I don’t like driving around a lot lol.
I also have a bunch of fig cuttings of various varieties I will give away for free to anyone who wants them, same for some other fruit tree scions.
Varieties include:
Bourjasotte Grise
Brooklyn White
Dalmatie
Hative d’Argenteuil
Longue d’Aout
LSU Champagne
LSU Tiger
Moscatel Preto
Negretta
Paradiso Genova (Joe Morle’s)
Smith
Susser Georg
Violette De Bordeaux
All are in 1-3 gallon pots except for Longue d’Aout, which is a larger tree in a 5 gallon bucket.
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