Strange weather - Will it get our blooms and fruit?

This is sad to see. I appreciate this forum precisely because there are rarely any such “landmines” in the discussions.

As growers, questions of weather and climate are crucial to our activity. We have to be able to discuss them in an unpoliticized atmosphere.

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Tony, the future for hybrid persimmons will be tough next night. I hope yours will survive enough to recover. I also hope for the best for jujubes and pawpaws (these guys grow so slow). The only good thing is that the trees should be at their hardiest at this time of the winter.

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Tony-
Looks like the airport in Omaha had -18F.

Digging back… This is the coldest since Jan 4th, 2010…when it was -20F at the airport in Omaha… Since then the winters look pretty mild…

Starting left to right from Dec 2010-2011…these are the winter lows up until winter 2016-17
-10F, 0F, -3F, -11F, -6F, -6F, -11F …

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We are away from the heating of Des Moines and the thermometer reads -21 on the deck. I was surprised this morning when I went to feed and water chickens that I haven’t had any death in the coops yet. They do eat well though.

I am most worried about my California bred apple trees. Most of the rest should be ok on Geneva stocks.

Tony, keep the fingers and head covered. I started to feel numbness and tingles from cold after 15-20 minutes, with gloves on and a hat. Be careful brother.

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mine have survived -30f in a uninsulated coop. anything lower than that i put a heat lamp on a timer to come on at night. the red color doesn’t seem to bother them. they will all huddle under it on the floor together. cold doesn’t even phase the ducks.

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Yeah,

I remembered the Winter of 2010 when the temp dropped to -20F. It was so cold and windy that my young American persimmon trees bark splitted and died. Their roots sent up a bunch of suckers the following year.

Tony

I remember the days of dealing with -30C while helping the folks at Louis Bull Cree Nation start a community orchard. Today I’m having to protect my citrus trees from 21F. For all of you dealing with intense cold, here’s wishing you warmer weather ahead. May all our fruit trees sail through this with no major problems. God bless.

Marcus
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=972374859584907&set=a.215724545249946.1073741826.100004372062607&type=3

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We are warmer than some locations today, We are at -4 degrees F. This is more like the winters I remember. Sure would like to be in Florida right now! @jeremymillrood what is your temperature?

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Well @clarkinks it’s warmer here than where you are, but still really cold for us. We were down in south Florida visiting family over New Years left yesterday and it was about 67, got home and we were treated with almost a 30 degree drop…this pattern is expected to hold for the next few days, some people were even talking we might see a flurry or two…

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Is that with or without the wind chill? Right now here around Clarksville, TN it is -7 with wind chill and 1 degrees without. For purposes of using your information above do you use wind chill temp or not? Just curious. Thanks for the good info.
Historical data shows Clarksville, TN with a record low of 2 degrees on this day in 1977. I would think todays temp of 1 degrees has set a new low.

This is without wind-chill, the absolute temperature. Wind-chill is for warm-blooded creatures like people, it does nothing for the trees. Although dry winds can be very damaging for them.

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Depressing reading all of this. I’m feeling lucky as here the extremes have been avoided. I’m south enough in Michigan not to get the super cold air, or snow for that matter. -4F is as cold as it has been. Well within my stone fruit’s range. I swear SE MI is a sweet spot in the Midwest. Chills and the podpiper are all near me too.

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I can’t say I’m feeling too depressed for you, We went from a low of -a bunch to +15 today. Took the Carhartt off and ran around in a sweatshirt. Now its snowing again and high of 9 tomorrow. Give me 34 please!

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With the prospect of ice and bridges freezing, the city practically shut down today. I woke up it was still raining with temps hovering above the freezing mark…Non-essential city workers were told to stay home and people were encouraged to keep off the roads…I’m typing this from my empty office where no one has come in…I guess it’s a good thing, lacking any infrastructure to deal with bad conditions the city would have turned into a gridlocked mess of accidents…but those up north are probably still getting a good laugh…

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We have folks here that have to learn winter driving skills every year too. Many have to learn those skills every snow!

What should bother you the most is non-essential city workers.

Stay safe down there, ice is always tricky

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Here are my banana plants after the recent cold snap…keep in mind these aren’t something I’m maintaining, so I have no attachment to them…in fact several years ago I dug them out of my landscape and threw them, back in the wooded area behind my house and they continued to grow all on their own…anyway, being a tropical plant they obviously don’t fair too well when temps get below freezing, but we haven’t had cold like this in a couple of years so they got hit pretty hard. They’re not dead, but it’s interesting to see the effects of the cold on these types of plants…

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Was curious to see the difference in the amount of chill between this year and last. Last year was extremely mild and up to this point in 2017 we only had 22 chill hours, 51 for the entire chill period between 11/1 and 2/28/17. By comparison, we’re already at 161 hours, more than 3 times as many. I’m wondering how big of a difference it will make in fruit production particularly on the apples and my peach tree that I expect will produce this year.

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Do I spot a giant split-leaf philodendron back there?

I put some out on my sunporch one winter, and they froze quite dead

good eye @ltilton, you are correct that is a philodendron. The previous owner of the house had it planted in a really bad spot…my wife didn’t care for it and I had no particular attachment so I dug it up and tossed it back in the preserve. Some how it managed to take root and is actually doing well…I don’t mind it so much back there.

This time last year we had raked up only a little more than 300 chilling hours thus far. This year we have well over 600 hours. You have to go all the way back to 2011 to find another year to have comparable hours at this point in the season to what we have this year. God bless.

Marcus

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