Strange weather - Will it get our blooms and fruit?

[mamuang]

None open but apricots and pluots are at swollen buds. They look rather bad after last week single digit temp.

From experience, my apples, pears and sweet cherries should be fine.

[clarkinks]

My apricots are completely open but they always get nipped. My nectarines are almost open. My peaches are very swollen and showing color, my plums are nearly open and showing lots of color.the pears are not showing color but are a little beyond tight cluster. I’m hopeful the snow fall will insulate some blooms and that the winds will stay strong acting like a wind machine. The copper I sprayed will reduce the ice producing bacteria on the blossoms.

[mamuang]

What has been your low temp?

I could not spray last week, too windy. Could not even spray Surround ( non toxic) with such strong wind gust.

If we continue to have this wacky weather pattern next next, we all will have to adjust and be more prepared to handle it. I personally thought I could not have been unlucky two years in a row. Well, I am wrong.

[clarkinks]

19 will be the lowest we are expecting but that’s definitely low enough to do a lot of damage as far along as what our trees are.

[mamuang]

Your trees are definitely further along than mine. Growing fruit is an adventure indeed.

[clarkinks]

My small yellow pear and my Drippin’ honey are still at bud burst stage. I may still have a few pears yet. It will depend of course on how the next couple of weeks go. I think we’ve all been expecting blossom loss occurring given the warm weather.

[thecityman]

I’m not sure if I’ve said hello or not…we’ve had a few nashville area folks join in the last few weeks. I’m 25 minutes north on I-65 on the KY/TN border. Always nice to see a neighbor here! Same for you, Sam. @tennessean

Anyway, you couldn’t be more right. I have about 100 trees and I’d say 70 of them are either in full bloom or have buds swollen to the pink phase or, as unbelievable as it is for our area this time of year, have already bloomed and have tiny fruitlets. Either way, the comming weather will almost certainly kill the fruit on all of them. I couldn’t be more disgusted. Even though I’m only about 25 miles north, our temps are always about 2 degrees colder than Nashville, so I’m doomed. Sorry to hear you are facing the same thing. Who would have imagined we’d have so many blooming trees in February? Crazy!

[tennessean]

Kevin, look at it this way - without any fruit to worry about, we will have more time for turkey hunting!

[thecityman]

I like the way you think! Speaking of which, I’ve seen some of the biggest flocks I’ve ever seen! I guess the mild winter was good for them too (fewer deaths from starving or freezing, more rodents and other substitutes to feed coyotes, bobcats and hawks, etc). I figure these flocks will start breaking up soon, then we’ll be hearing that sweet “GOBBLE, GOBBLE, GOBBLE!”

[warmwxrules]

-42F right now in N Saskatchewan around the core of the high pressure… International Falls dropped to -10F…coldest i’m seeing up here. I dropped to 13F. No snow cover sure helps keep the temps up.

[Klondike_Mike]

Looks like the no snow cover thing is about to change for both of us tomorrow. . . .

[scottfsmith]

21.5F here last night. With one such night I probably would not lose a whole lot, but there are five or so coming up. I am going to blowtorch each morning to try to take the edge off things.

All my asian plums are now fully blooming except Lavina which is in partial bloom. That plum is pretty unique in terms of being late. Hoyt Montrose is starting to bloom, and Zard is swelling, all the other apricots are in full bloom. Many of the nectarines are early, at pink, whereas the peaches are still just swelled.

[speedster1]

18 for me this morning. Not sure how well the light and tarp worked. I wish it was only 1 night I had to do this but as Scott mentioned it’s going to last for several days

[tennessean]

Have you ever seen such a huge flock of turkeys that the ground seemed to be rolling as they took off thru the woods? If you have seen that then you know what I am talking about. Now that is a sight to behold!

[warmwxrules]

Yeah…looking at the model this morning…S Wisconsin and areas along L Michigan cash in, but we all get covered… .Looks like Tony out in Omaha may have dodged the snow bullet…

Maybe some late season snow into Tennessee
http://www.pivotalweather.com/model.php?m=gfs&p=sn10_acc&rh=2017031106&fh=144&r=conus&dpdt=

[Bart]

I finally bit the bullet and walked down to my orchard yesterday! I was surprised to find that my buds are all fine (but) between last night and today we’ve had six inches of snow.

Here’s an article that tells you how to evaluate damage to buds:

Evaluating Tree Fruit Bud & Fruit Damage from Cold - 7.426 - Extension

And here’s a different “low temperature” chart than the one posted above. It doesn’t list Japanese Plums for some reason, but the Euro Plums are lined up properly (which the one above isn’t for some reason)

http://orchardkeeper.com/pdf/IllustratedSpringFrostDamageThresholds.pdf

[mamuang]

@Bart,
Thanks for the link esp. The first one. The illustrations are very clear.

I had never seen pictures of fruit in maturity with frost damage before. Good to know what it looks like. Thanks again.

[fiveio]

Was about 5F at sunrise here in southern ME. Now at ~10AM it’s 3F.

[ltilton]

Forecast lows continue to fall - from 14 here on Tuesday to 11

At least that’s above zero!

[SMC_zone6]

That’s a pretty tight line coming up the coast. Looks like Boston could get anywhere from four inches to twenty inches from what that model shows. Come on big twenty!