I have notched trees during winter pruning so I wouldn’t worry too much about freezing temps. I don’t think temps above zero would be an issue with when to cut into wood.
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I’m still investigating my Saturn peach, but i think the buds got zapped over winter. Maybe i’ll find a few good ones. My temp low for winter was -11F…3 times it hit -10F… My Saturn is in a south facing (with a wall behind it) location so that probably doesn’t help.
I know a lot of you are thinking it, so I’m going to go ahead and say
it, pc or not, so much for global warming or whatever you want to call it.
We tend to see our world through myopic glasses. It’s much bigger than what is going on in your backyard, town, county, state…
Don’t go there, I am tempted to respond but what is the point after having the most mild winter on record which also proves nothing either way. If you are a climate scientist rip away- otherwise let’s just talk about fruit. Not because it is PC but because it serves some use and is something we all know something about.
You already know where these conversations go and we’ve already taken the subject to the limit.
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I’m only taking out a junior membership in Alan’s exclusive club and demand a reduced rate! I went out this morning and checked the buds on a couple of my peach trees. One that I just planted last year that got racked by Rudolph and don’t know if it will survive has a high drop rate when I touched them. The other tree that I have inside 6’ tall chain link fencing has a drop rate of only 10 to 20%. I checked two nearby weather stations near me and they both recorded a recent low of 28 or 29F this week.
I even don’t want to go out and check the tree. It was 23 last night
Sorry to hear all your losses.
We are expecting 25,26 monday and Tuesday, it’s better than the 24 forecasted yesterday. My microclimate is always a few degree lower, so still at risk of losing all the peach and plum. I will try to string Christmas light and cover the trees, but not sure how successful I can be. We have wind gust upto 50-60 mph.
I planted my first peach tree in 2008 and found the old GW fruit forum 2010, hear you guys talk about early freeze all these years, this will be the first time happen to me.
I don’t have record of bloom time for all these years, but I think it’s early this year. I remember a couple of years ago, peach just started to bloom on tax day. This year, the peach tree are post bloom already today.
I may join Alan’s club by the middle of this week😓
Guess I don’t have to worry about what to do with all the frozen peach in my freezer from last year.
5 or 10 more years of this might prove something but for now we have an unpredictable unusual one time event. A backyard shrub that has been flowering the 3rd week of April for the past 25 yrs was flowering April 1 this year. And now comes the cold with temperature predictions for Tuesday night that change daily. First is was a low of 28. Then it went to 25. I felt better when they upped it to 27 but now its changed again, this time to 22. Not good. Since all the plants are flowering or leafing out everything in pots is coming back into the house and the small in-ground fig is wrapped up again.
Pretty sure my flavor king are toast. They look wilted. Not sure that I’d had and fruit set anyway but would’ve been nice to see. My lapins might have survived. They still look good. Although next week’s 24 will probably zap all of them anyway
-12 Celsius (10F) here this morning. Luckily for me buds have not even started pushing yet. That said it appears I am about 14 days in advance of usual, crocus and narcissus are pushing up when usually that is around April 14th or so. …
@Sara_in_philly - Using my very formal method of recording bloom dates, Instagram, I am able to say my peaches bloomed on April 15th, 2015 and March 16th, 2016.
I am also right outside Philly on the Jersey side. I initially thought it was great as it would be an early peach season. But seeing the weather the next few nights I may lose the blossoms. The flowers are just about to fall as they have been open almost 3 weeks now.
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I took a closer look today. I did indeed find some dead buds. They were small, dry and not colorful. I took a pic with my phone, but it didn’t come out well, so I won’t inflict it on you.
Some varieties had quite a few dead flowers. White River seemed to have about half, with some parts of the tree only having a few live flowers. Most of the other varieties had a few, but not too many, maybe 10-20%. Even on the WR, 50% isn’t too bad and would be fine if we didn’t have another round of damage coming.
But, in the next 7 days, there are lows of 28, 21, 22, 39, 39, 26, 24. Given that most of the peach are in the “First Pink” stage, I’m guessing that most, but not all will get killed, as 90% kill is at 15F, but some damage starts at 25F.
I did apply some Stop Wilt to a few branches today. I only had a tiny bit left (maybe a half inch at the bottom of a 32 Oz bottle). Rather than getting out a sprayer, I mixed it up at roughly the desired concentration and applied it with a soap bottle to a ~8 branches (each on different plum and apricot trees). I marked which ones I did, so I’ll know if they are the only ones that fruit.
Last year I got 24 after bloom and didn’t seem to lose much so you are still in the game. However, as this season has already shown, there is more in play than just lows. Many years -12 wouldn’t have knocked out my peaches and nects- it got that cold the previous winter here but the trees were apparently more hardened off because the winter was consistently cold.
I really feel for you guys. Every time I want to complain I am going to have to maybe cover the tomatoes I have already blooming these threads give me perspective. #carolinaproblems?
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I agree w/ Mr. Guy. This really stinks. A lot of people have offered my sympathy for frost damage because I grow commercially, but the disappointment to backyard growers is as bad, just different. A year’s worth of work and effort down the drain. Anguishing just thinking about it.
Maybe you guys/gals in the North still have some hope. I thought everything was gone when we got down to 24-25F and there was 1/8" frost on the blooms. Looked so terrible. So disheartening. I’ve never seen frost damage which looked so bad on peach blooms. But it’s really looking now like the majority of the trees will produce a full crop in spite of losing 90% of the blooms. Many will probably need to be thinned heavily, because of latent blooms.
Just like w/ blooms, you can cut open dormant peach fruit buds to see if they’re alive. Of course if they are shrunken and falling off, there’s obviously no reason to cut them open.
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I finally did that yesterday. All of my peach buds looked good from the outside (I’m nowhere near bloom yet), but the few I cut open had small dark spots in the center. I guess Alan is right, most were probably damaged during a previous freeze event.
In the past, I’ve seen a number of marginally damaged peach and plum buds bloom. They look dull and hardly noticeable from a distance. Most of the time they will not produce any fruit.
That is great news, Olpea. I’m so glad for you.
It isn’t the same to me when my livelihood isn’t affected and only my pleasure. Of course, if a lot of my customers lose their apple crops tonight it will affect my livelihood. This morning I’m consulting with a couple that might throw tarps over some of their stonefruit. It’s supposed to drop to 20 for some of them and the flowers are pink but not open. The J. plums are in full bloom.
Certainly great news. Old mother nature may have helped you cut down the time it takes you to thin by 90%.
MSU reports at -13 damage begins, but it could have been that cold by the peach trees. They report wood damage at -20. I can’t tell how much damage I have. No winter damage, current temps are what it’s all about for me. I’m protecting Arctic Glo, Indian Free, and Nadia. I don’t have enough equipment to protect more, so my pluots, Spice Z and Lucky 13, White Gold are on their own.