Borer,
Mine are swelling a little and I don’t like it much. Wonder how Olpea is doing on his orchard.
Any bloomers yet? I would imagine the apricots would be the first to go of the fruit trees?
Can you all believe this? This is INSANE! This is a pluot that bloomed in LATE MARCH last year!!! This is February 14 and this thing is almost in full bloom! It had major bud swell (you could see the white) on January 31!!! Where I live on the TN/KY border, it is a virtual certainty that we will have freezing temps several times over the next 2 months, so its highly doubtful I’ll get any fruit from this tree this year. Many of my other trees are also showing major bud swell and are way, way ahead of schedule. Very strange weather, indeed.
BTW…this situation makes me question the whole “chill hour” concept. We had incredibly warm weather all the way up until Christmas- we barely got below 50 degrees, which is very strange. Same thing has been true ever since New Years- most days have been remarkably warm. So, on a common sense level, I can understand how a tree might “think” this warm weather signifies a spring warming. But we all know that supposedly a tree “knows” when to bloom based on whether or not it has experienced a certain number of “chill days” (hours, actually). Under that theory, it makes no sense that in a year where we have had almost all warm days the trees would bloom early. To the contrary. If the accumulation of chill hours is what triggers blooms/end of dormancy, then years like this where we have had very few cold days (ie very few chill hours) then shouldn’t the trees be blooming LATER than usual instead of earlier? Shouldn’t’ they still be waiting for the accumulation of the magic number of chill days/hours? But the reality in my orchard is that in a year when we have had a shockingly low number of chill hours/chill days (very few days below 45 or so degrees), my trees are all breaking dormancy earlier than ever.
Don’t get me wrong- I know I- an inexperienced grower- am not going to dispell established scientific theory/establishment with one year of strange weather, but it is curious observation that I’d enjoy seeing discussed/answered.
1 Like
My multigraft plum/pluot is also starting to bloom now. This one is in a container though so I should be OK by bringing it into the garage if we get a freeze threat. Peaches are still holding off but look like they’re starting to swell a little. We’re predicted to hit 32F tomorrow night but after that, it’s back to warmer weather. Hopefully we don’t get any really late frosts this year.
What pluot do you have blooming @thecityman? I’m a little south of you and I got a little over 650 chill units from the Utah model so I’d guess you probably got a little more than that? I’d expect that is probably enough chilling for most of the pluots.
I had thought about that…just because it “seems” we haven’t had many chill hours doesn’t make that the case, and as you pointed out, many pluots have very low requirements that probably have been met. But I still would have thought that it at least took longer than usual to meet them, not faster than usual as the early blooms would suggest. And almost all my trees are ahead of schedule, including those with much longer chill hour requirements. That is why it seems like it is the warm weather triggering the end of dormancy and not the accumulation of chill hours. But as you say, my casual observations of what it “seems” like has happened this year is far from empirical evidence and therefore isn’t much of a scientific rebuttal to the chill hour concept.
BTW…to answer your question about which pluot that is, its a very long story, but evidence suggests its called Dragon Tear and is one that wasn’t supposed to be sold except to licensed commercial growers. Here is the story:
According to the getchill.com calculator, I have received 377 chill hours under utah method as off 3 days ago when my tree first bloomed.
I’d check a few other stations. Your north of Nashville, right? I checked a station in Springfield (don’t know how close that is to you… KTNSPRIN41) and it got about 750. The station you checked might not be reporting accurately.
MY Pluots are a little ahead of my Apricots and Aprium this year. Flavor Supreme and Grenade
I looked over Nashville weather during Dec and Jan just past. Your area has had lots of chilling. Way more than enough for pluots. Most pluots would have been fully chilled by Jan 1. So any warm weather since has been pushing bloom.
In your area warm days, above normal for winter, have good chilling at night. Cold days have good chilling during the daylight hrs. Most pluots don’t need much chilling.
I’ve had outdoor, low-chill nectarines blooming in January the last three yrs.
The Utah model is for cold winter areas, like Utah, and and higher chilling fruits than pluots.
All are fair comments that make sense. And clearly there IS something wrong with my station. Springfield is about 8 miles from me (good guess!) so if it shows that many hours, my station 8 miles away can’t be that different. SO like I said…just because it seems abnormally warm, that doesn’t mean we haven’t actually gotten a fair number of chill hours. So I guess that explains things. Thanks.
Man is it a crazy year, so glad I don’t have this going on in W MI.
The other thing to consider is growing degree days. Since you have an unknown pluot, it could very well be a low chill cultivar. And the chill units are probably pretty fuzzy. You get more or less chill units depending on which models you choose. The models are just representations that have some use for prediction.
Here are maps of growing degree days.
http://pnwpest.org/US/index.html
And a listing of phenological stages as a function of GDD’s 43 and 50F.
https://msu.edu/~shane/phenology/phenGDD1.htm
1 Like
I just put in a flavor grenade from bare roots this Jan— it’s popping now. However its potential asian plum pollinators don’t show signs of waking up yet (Satsuma, Santa Rosa). I’m going to assume the transplanting shocked it into blooming early. I do have a Gold Kist apricot blooming now – I may hand pollinate with some of its blooms to see if I can set any fruit with apricot pollen.
It was likely fully chilled before it was shipped to you. Say in Modesto.
By the way Valley Center, CA sounds like a great place to be a fruit grower…!!
You are probably correct, DWN estimates are 200 hrs for Flavor Grenade – it is the lowest chill of the Zaiger pluot bunch. I have no complaints about Valley Center, CA. So what if I can’t accumulate enough chill for a Bing cherry?
You could but I’m not sure it would be worth the effort. I can manage 2,000+ hrs in my greenhouse using shade and evaporative cooling. Our averages outside in winter are 60/30. In the greenhouse it would hit 120 most days without cooling.
My Bings last yr were amazing, 32 brix, high acid, and crunchy.
1 Like
I’ve pretty much discounted the standard 32-45 degree chill hour accumulation data for my area. This year I’m only at 210 chill hours (CH), with 900 postive utah hours. If I went by recommended CH most of my trees would be poor choices for my area. I’m focusing more on the chill portions (CP) model, which makes more sense to me based on my background in biochemistry. Unfortunately cultivar CP estimates aren’t as readily available as CH’s, nor is there a strong direct relationship between the two methods. My temperatures oscillate between the 45-60 degree range most of the winter, with brief spikes into the 70s.
Yeah…hopefully we don’t pull a March 2012
Down to small areas of ice and snow here…most yards are all grass. Colder air moving in for tomorrow…upper 40Fs this afternoon…still not sure how warm we get Fri-Mon… could still be looking at a 60F or better…
I remember that a lot of local Orchards got screwed on that deal.