Thanks for the info. I don’t recall spring frosts being any worse than normal this year. But the winter might have been bit colder. Maybe that did it.
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My guess is they broke dormancy at end of December…and never returned to a deep sleep and that’s the cause of losses. I had an apple and several blueberries blooming after Christmas…they already had met their chill requirements. And it got into the 60’s and 70’s several days at end of the year.
My apple has died…just one of the blueberries died, but several lost their crop for this year because they bloomed in winter.
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Most of my blueberry bushes are leafing out, sans blooms. Believe our 25F night on 4/10 hit them at just the wrong time… Put the hurt on a lot of peaches as well but I may end up getting 15 to 20 total across 3 trees. With 2 other trees having some blooms this year but all fruit failed on them. Will hopefully get a decent qty of apples this year, compared to last year’s harvest of a grand total of 1 apple from 1 tree… The cold hurt them some this year but not like last… Looks like I’ve lost 2 apple trees, 1 plum tree and 1 sweet cherry tree. With the last 2 having been moved from pots to my orchard space last year and it ended up being pretty dry in the fall… Could be worse I suppose.
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Kinda like my situation. My peaches actually didn’t bloom much this year, but that may be because of them not being properly pruned in recent years. I’ll be lucky to get a couple dozen off my 4 trees.
But, this may be our best apple harvest ever, since I started planting them 6 years ago. Lots of blooms on most of them. I lost a Goldrush tree of that age over the winter, but I planted new trees in March, GR being one of them. But, I also had two of those new trees not leaf out.
Anjeerfarmer, Sorry, I wasn’t clear. The ones I mentioned to stay aware from is due to Black Knot. Toka just won’t pollinate for me. Black Ice is supposed to be a good pollinator for it but hasn’t been for me. I do like black ice. It grows fast blossoms late pollinates well and has good flavor. Bryon Gold blossoms too early. I loose the blossoms every year. I have lost the tags on so many that I don’t know what they are.
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I have land in North Central KY and Northern KY near Cincy. Within the last 5 years, I planted about 30 pear trees, 6 apples, 90 persimmons 50 Chinese chestnut trees, mostly for wildlife. I planted 25 native plums, a few pawpaws, and fragrant sumac but I didn’t protect them. Not sure if they’re dead or alive. I have some black mulberry started from cuttings.
I’m just now getting into planting a few things in the yard now. I have a few fig cuttings that appear to have made it. I know next to nothing about figs though. I grafted a couple Frankenstein pears from wild callery rootstock and I have 25 persimmon seedlings I’ll graft when the weather warms (I’ll keep some and figure something to do with the rest). There’s a couple things like thornless blackberry, tomatoes and others I’d like to get into at some point too.
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Anjeerfarmer,
I would love to hear more about your low tunnel protection for figs! I’m adding more figs this year. I’m in Oldham County- just north of Louisville.
~Shawna
Most of my canes look horrible this year. Mine should have been blooming but nothing this year, so far
Same. I ended up finding one cane on the far end of my patch that looks normal. (not sure what kind it is, one of the others spread over there). All the rest look bad. Finally growing now a bit, but not blossoming.
Crazy dry here in middle TN. No rain since May 5th.
Grass is burning up and I’m watering things. Haven’t seen this in May that I can remember.
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Wow, that is early in the year to not get any rain. Hope you get some rain soon.
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Speaking of dry…I though the sub-group had dried up!
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We had two or three freeze warnings this spring. I looked at my fruit trees these last couple of weeks. Probably no peaches to speak of, just a few. Some of my apple trees have zero fruit on them. I have some that the fruit seems to be on the lower part of the tree and also some on the inner part of the tree on the lower branches. Bummer year for fruit here , as far as I can see. Some trees fool me because the fruit is so small and the leaves are the same color. So at times I do not notice the fruit until later in the season. I hope all of you have better fruit years that I appear to be going to have.
I got much more peach fruit set than I thought I would. I’m not talking like dozens and dozens of fruit, but more than in years past, despite a sparse amount of blooms.
Apple fruit set has been variable, compared to all the blossoms I saw. We had a 25 degree night in March, but not a lot was blooming then. It’s actually been a somewhat normal spring warmup this year.
Macoun and Zestar had a huge bloom, but Z hasn’t set much at all. I suspect it’s because it bloomed first and that was when it was still cool and rainy. So I suspect lack of pollinators. Macoun fruit set has been disappointing compared to all the blooms. But, like you said, it’s hard to see them amongst all the leaves.
Cortland has the best set, Pristine very good as well. Roxbury Russet bloomed a lot but I don’t see many fruitlets now. My Grimes Golden has lots of blooms, but something is wrong with it, it’s not setting much, but it’s also not leafing out much either. So, I’m suspecting it’s in a bad way. My Goldrush already croaked this winter, so I’ve lost quite a few apple trees over the last few years.
Pears didn’t set much other than on one tree. Since they bloom earlier than the apples, I’m also suspecting lack of pollinators due to the weather.
@MikeC hopefully you will find small hidden fruit in the next few weeks. Here in central KY this was possibly the best spring in the last 3-4 years and I did not lose much to frosts. Decent fruit set on Contender and Belle of GA peach. Few plums have fruit set for the first time, few Apples for first time. Mulberries have a decent load on them, Grapes have fruit set. Hosui pear is the most loaded. Ayers pear has few fruits set.
Persimmons (Prok, Yates and Nikita’s gift) have lots of flowers on them for the first time.
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I heard so many great things about the Goldrush apple I went and planted one this year. I planted it two weeks ago and it is blooming already. Little straight stick with blooms all over it. Maybe it is a good sign this will be a good fit here. Time will tell.
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The trees I hand pollinated (apples)…
have more fruits set than others…
Lack of bee activity due to sub-60 temps in April is the cause in my opinion.
I have zero apples on Redfield…and I didn’t do any hand pollinating of that variety.
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@TrilobaTracker — man you need to start doing your rain dance over there… we are starting to need some pretty bad here…
Going out to water some stuff now.
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@TNHunter
Yeah it’s really really bad. 90 and windy for three days here is making it worse. Grass turning brown.
I guess the positives are: no fungus on my pawpaws, no weeds sprouting, no need to mow the grass.
I’ve got to set up some PVC drip pipes or something other than moving a single garden hose around. …
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