I think that is exactly what’s happening. I see no cold damage on any of them. Lots of vigorous growth but other than a few exceptions, varieties that produced last year are not producing this year.
Maybe the biennial nature will change once they get large? I expect my more vigorous trees will get 5-6 feet tall this year at the rate at which they are growing.
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My old bush has not shown any sign of biennial bearing during its 30 years.
+15F degrees has appeared in the literature as being the magic temperature that affects the following season’s bloom. It could be that different varieties have different bloom-follows-cold thresholds.
But if anyone in the PNW has several of the same variety in close proximity and they are behaving differently in the same year, then we are back to not understanding the species.
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There is one variable I had forgotten to mention –
Alberts varieties were very late bearing for me last year, so I covered them with frost blankets through December until january to harvest late fruit. Maybe that protected the trees until they were able to go fully dormant?
I think ramv has 1 each of many varieties.
@murky, I have multiples of each variety. Lots of varieties. Tons more added this year.
Each variety seems to behave identically i.e. All Abbadabba are flowering heavily this year. Also all 8 ball.
Zero Arhart flowers. Zero Kaiteri. Very small number of Anatoki, Kakariki and Takaka.
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Okay, sounds like Larry is tracking better than me. Thanks for the correction.
I figured you were tight on space.
BTW. My Anotoki is definitely still alive. Kaiteri, Kakariki, and Takaka remain to be seen. I have little hope for one and won’t be surprised either way on the other 2.
I found a couple more flower buds on another graft, looks like a total of 6, all from Marta varieties, but nothing open yet. This one is the closest:
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Looks like a week away from opening. It will likely fruit this year.
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My Takaka blooms are about 2 weeks from even opening!
But I got flowers from 2 new seedling varieties this year. They should be very good as they are from Mark Albert.
Everything seems frozen with the onset of Junuary weather.
But there are a couple of flowers on 8 ball
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D’oh! There’s one rootstock branch on my larger bush that I have been meaning to prune off for awhile because it sits on the ground and is growing basically horizontally. I inspected it yesterday and didn’t see any flower buds, so decided to give it the chop. Lo and behold, as I’m cutting up the branch I find two buds. Oops!!
I’m putting it in a vase so maybe I can at least eat the flowers if they will still open.
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I found usually that the lower branches had flower buds. Maybe because they were protected more from frost? Atleast this is the case with all the NZ varieties.
Mark Albert’s varieties bear flowers very profusely all over the tree. He used to say they have a tendency to “overbear”. For our climate, overbearing is probably better then under bearing.
I also discovered flowers on a new seedling this year. This came from Mark and is probably an Albert’s pride.
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I went to the pool at mcminamins Bothell yesterday. The back parking lot was lined with feijoas. Where it backs up to pop keeney stadium. The campus was loaded with figs and other fruit trees. I plan to go back and look around another time I am not rushed with the kids. It looks like it’s landscaped as a food forest in a lot of areas. Anyone else ever been there? It was my first time.
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My limited experience has been that they get earlier every year as they mature.
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On this side of the Atlantic - in the Netherlands - most varieties are starting to flower right now as well. Some of them will ripen in time before the frost, but most won’t.
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My first two blossoms were fully opened yesterday, and were promptly chewed off the bush by likely a squirrel.