I have a freeze related question that I’ve never seen addressed here. Everyone talks about damage and possible damage to fruit buds and blooms at various stages (and I’m sorry for your losses), but I haven’t seen anything about the effects of cold on actual (baby) fruit. My trees are 3 weeks ahead this year, and amazingly my peaches have already bloomed, petals have fallen, and shucks are splitting and falling right now. So I have a lot of actual peaches that are about twice the size of a BB or maybe half the size of a marble. Most of you know the size of a peach a couple days after the shucks fall off. Our forecast here is calling for 29 degrees Saturday night, so of course I’m worried. I know that temp is nothing compared to what many of you are facing, and I understand that buds at almost any stage would survive a brief dip down to 29. But what about actual fruit/fruitlets? Are those tiny fruit more susceptible to mild freezing or less susceptible? And the 29 is for Nashville- I’m 30 miles north and usually a couple degrees cooler, so I could easily see temps of 27 degrees. Fortunately, it is supposed to be in the 50’s that day and in the 50’s the next day, so its only one night. What can you all tell me about freezing temps and baby fruit? Thank-you.
Baby fruits are listed in the MSU table, its the rightmost column. It depends on the fruit but 28F is usually 10% kill. So yo might lose some but not a lot I would expect.
I have a good chance of losing some baby fruits this weekend, its forecast for 27F now.
I lost of most of my unprotected fruitlets to a 28ºF Memorial Day weekend frost last year. Nature thinned them a little too much! The prediction was 31ºF frost, which should have been fine. Getting ahead of the usual seasonal cycle is a bad thing.
Well…Scott had me feeling pretty good, then you brought me back down! 
But its good to hear actual experiences. Thank-you both for the input.
Well you had a bad year last year, so your due. You’ll only have to deal with brown rot, and PC and other insects! Yikes! I seem to be far enough north to avoid most damage coming. I see some buds are dead but 80% look OK, still 2 more very cold days though! I should get some fruit though.
When I say far enough north I mean mine are not very developed yet. Also my trees are still hardy as we have had very little warm weather. Looks like May before any bloom which is normal for here. I didn’t record bloom times before, but I will this year. One must have a good journal!
16.5F last night here (after 19.7F yesterday). I went out to the yard around 8:30 when it was 24F and in parts of the orchard the ground was actually frozen.
Some of the closed buds on J Plums were viably damaged and drooping, but others look fine. Most of the charts only have Euro plums, whose flowers look a bit different, so I’m not sure the actual stage and temps. I think there is a good chance that they are lost, but I’d be very interested if anyone could point me to a similar resource which includes Asian plums.
The weather stations in my general area showed low from18-24.
For some reason, my weather thermometer stopped recording. Just showed LL. So I have no idea the exact temp here.
But I know it’s a lot lower than the 24.4 I recorded yesterday. There was only a layer of thin ice yesterday morning in my birdbath, this morning the birdbath was and still is frozen solid.
I am in western suburb of philly.
From your lips (fingers) to God’s ears! haha. Actually, so far karma does seem to be working for me…it looks like I have huge fruit sets on several plums, peaches, and pears that have never fruited and it even looks like I have some apricots that set a few fruits…something I really only expect every 5 years or less from what I’ve read and been told by people here regarding my chances of getting apricots in my area. Of course, I’m still a very long way from picking any ripe fruit so I shouldn’t be counting my chickens!!!
Most of all, I wanted to say how right you are about my comming challenges regarding insects. As I have said on a few threads here over time, I sincerely believe I have one of the most extreme problems with OFM that exists anywhere. Last time I had peaches on my trees (2 years ago) I sprayed more often (1 time per week!!!) and mixed my spray (triazicide) stronger than most people recommend and I still had the little OFM worms in about 80% of my peaches. It just drove me crazy to work so hard, follow all recommendations, even going above and beyond them, and still getting hit so hard. SOOOOO…just yesterday I ordered a 5 pound bag of Imidan-70-W. I also ordered a sticker similar to nu film 17 (I didn’t use a sticker b4). I’m going to try those things on a few trees and see if I get better results.
BTW, I think I remember you saying somewhere that you use a generic nu film (but I may be thinking of when you mentioned that you use a generic copper). If so, is it Pinene II ? From what I’ve read in different places, Pinene II has same ingredients and is equivalent in every way to Nu Film 17, but I’d like to hear from people who have used both to see if they agree. So if anyone has experience with Pinene II sticker, please let me know what you think. For some reason Keystone only carries that one and not Nu Film and since I was placing a keystone order anyway, I got that sticker from them.
Just saw a dead bumble bee on my deck, it wasn’t there yesterday. The cold weather killed it?
Sure he’s dead? They stop moving if it’s cold.
I just went to take it inside, hope it will recover.
You are right, it’s legs start moving.
It was the copper. that sticker sounds fine, as the only ingredient really is pinene. It works extremely well. Yes I would switch up insecticide. Also see if any local universities give warnings about insect control. many do, and let you know when to spray. Experience does help, and you are gaining it. Last year was the first year I had stone fruit, and it came out perfect. Beginner’s luck! Well I have been growing plants and some edibles for 40 years, so I know how to read plants, and how to spot problems. Plus with advice here that helped. Although I also used my own insight too. For example a new (for home orchards) product hit the market and I researched it, and it looked like a clear winner. Bonide’s Fruit Tree and Plant Guard. Nobody I know uses it, but it was a very effective product. So i attack brown rot with 2 products, and it has worked extremely well. The products have different modes of action, and that worked very well. Like attacking on 2 fronts instead of one. I had zero brown rot (knocking on wood). i will use the same approach this year. I also used 2 insecticides. One organic the other synthetic. Plant guard has a synthetic insecticide. I added one to Monterrey Fungi Fighter. So I rotated fungicide and insecticide every 2 weeks or so. I didn’t lose one fruit to bugs or fungi, I did lose a few to the squirrels! I’m adding a pepper spray to keep the squirrels away this year. I tried it last year and it seemed to work. I have a homemade pepper spray made from Carolina Reapers. Which at the time were the hottest pepper in the world. This last winter another has taken the crown. I got two Reaper plants going this year to keep my supply fresh. The new hottest pepper is not widely distributed yet, and it’s not official, but by all accounts it’s going to take the record. It’s called HP56 Death Strain. Ed who made the reaper developed it! Jalapenos are 10 thousand to 50 thousand scoville units. The reaper is 1.3 million. To give you an idea how hot this puppy is. I wear mask and gloves when working with it. Do not use latex gloves, you have to use nitrile gloves.
Ever see a squirrel jump 6 feet and spin about 100 times a minute? I have! 
They never come back!
LOL… he needs a back rub and a hot cup of coffee.
This would be my last post before I got divorced, if I tried bringing bees inside. The wife might actually beat me to death while still holding it if she was able.
I probably shouldn’t be allowed in this thread, we officially only got to 32 last night, and my microclimate runs a little warmer than the airport temperature just ten minutes down the highway, and I recorded 37 on the thermometer on my raised lettuce bed at 5am when I got up. I’ve got a giant stone sound wall running the entire length of the north side of my property. I’ve often wondered how much heat that retains given how much wind it’s subjected to, but my yard DOES stay warmer tucked in the little valley of my neighborhood.
I have lots of experience with 28 degree frosts and they’ve never caused significant or noticeable damage- even a couple weeks past petal fall.
Took a walk through the peach trees yesterday and everything looks surprisingly good. I pinched some buds off and opened them and they were green. I’m still apprehensive about this roller coaster weather continuing in the weeks to come but so far it looks like I’m still “in the game”.
@warmwxrules: we all need that after the last two tough nights! It took 2 hours, but the bee finally recovered from the cold and started buzzing inside the container. I just released it.
@MisterGuy: it’s a bumble bee, it doesn’t sting. Your wife will still react that strongly? We are commiserating about higher teens and lower 20s, and you talk about toasty 30s? You are right, you should be banned from this thread 
@ConwayOrchard: I looked up some my photos from last year, my peach full bloom last year was 3 weeks later than this year. This is not a good year for us backyard growers in NE 
Bumblebees do sting. You just have to really peeve them off, like by catching them in your hands. I speak from stupid experience.
There’s an article in the Worcester telegram and gazette about the orchards in Massachusetts and what they think about crop loss this year. I read it on their facebook page.