Well... what kind of impact will these negative degree temps have?

I think that’s going to be my plan too. I have 14 peach trees. 12 different varieties. Only one (Reliance) seems unscathed. So yeah… this may be my opportunity to lower the overall height and get some fresh fruiting wood.

1 Like

Yeah I’m positive I’ve lost 98% of the fruiting buds on my peaches. They’re just falling off on their own but the trees have clearly broken dormancy. My ‘reliance’ is the only one that is holding the buds/blooms. I bet flowers will be open on it in a few days. One nectarine is okay… the other is not. That sub zero weather really did a number on my trees and enthusiasm.

1 Like

There was a lot of dormant bud loss from that Dec. freeze. Normally -10F wouldn’t do a tremendous amount of damage. However, it was either too warm before that cold snap, or the trees didn’t have time to get into full endodormancy.

As far as I can tell, we got to -9F here and lost a lot of dormant peach buds. So did other people around here. But, a lot of trees still had enough buds to make a full crop. We had a spring freeze last week when just about everything was in full bloom. That killed some flowers. I don’t know yet how it will sort out.

Even in KY, peach growers down there lost a lot of dormant fruit buds from that December freeze, according to a chemical rep I talked to from there. Apparently the spring freeze we got about a month ago when they were in full bloom, killed any remaining flowers for growers that far south.

Some varieties off the top of my head which sailed through the -10F in Dec. and had a good bloom here were, Ernies Choice, Harken (which was a surprise because many years we have production problems with these trees), Contender (of course), PF 19-007 (this was a surprise because I think it had some production problems from a cold winter snap a couple years ago), PF eight ball (again surprise because of lack of production from a previous cold winter), Saturn donut, Challenger, Intrepid, Madison, Biscoe, Encore.

There were lots which lost lots of fruit buds, but still had quite a bit of flowers. Glohaven would fall in that category this year. So would Earlystar, Redhaven, Allstar, Veteran, Scarlet Prince, Laurol, Harrow Diamond, Harrow Beauty, PF 24c, Autumnstar, Johnboy, PF14.

Some varieties which got hit the hardest from the Dec. freeze would be Spring Snow (almost nothing on 4 trees), Glenglo, PF9a-007, TangOs 1 (practically nothing), PF 15a (very little), Loring (very little), Victoria, Winblo, Blazingstar (had almost nothing).

Risingstar, which is normally the gold standard for production (and excellent flavor) got hit pretty hard from that Dec. freeze, which was a surprise.

We have other varieties, but they didn’t stand out in my mind as either really poor, or really great bloom, so they would probably fit somewhere in the middle.

Again, this is just visible bloom and doesn’t take into account the spring freeze we had last week, or any potential future freezes we have left this season.

9 Likes

Here’s where I’m at with mine. 5A - Central Illinois (Champaign, IL)

No fruit buds/blooms this year:
PF 19-007
PF 15A
PF 24-007 (2)
PF 5D Big
Red Haven
Red Star
Prima Gattie (3)
Flame Prince
Gala
Royal Giant Nectarine

These have blooms:
Reliance (50% less than normal)
Elberta (September - loaded with blooms)
Contender (Young tree - Will likely pluck any fruit off)
Hardired Nectarine (3 year old tree. Seemingly light on blooms)

1 Like

Mark,
Do you recall if Contender’s flowers showy or non-showey?

I bought a Contender tree on impulse from Lowe’s. It has non-showy flowers.

1 Like

Lol! I also bought a “Contender” at Lowe’s this year. It had a bloom on it and I actually pulled up this link : Here's some blooms of stone fruit in the store on my phone to check before I bought it! I was satisfied the one I was considering looked very much like the picture.

It’s not showy. Hope yours is good too!

Having the right type of flower is only step one. There are more to verify. At least, it is the right first step.

I know Mark/@olpea posted pics but I could not think of the name of that thread. Thanks for bringing it up.

They are non-showy Tippy.

Here is the thread you referred to. It has pictures of blooms throughout the thread. Mostly peach or nects, but some other fruits as well.

3 Likes

I have a mature Raspberry Red nectarine that is loaded with flower buds that all appear to be swelling. This might finally be the year. I believe i hit a minimum of -13F at least 2 times and was below zero maybe 20 ish times. I’m very pumped. Also the apricot is loaded, although that tree is still smallish.

3 Likes

Looking like a fruitless summer ahead in 5B East Central Illinois. We had 25/26 degree temps this morning. From what I’ve read these temps are killers for new and pollinated blooms. Our apple trees looked like the only trees that were going to produce this year. I’m guessing this sudden cold snap will polish off the blooms and anything that may have been pollinated. It seems that those ultra low temps were only sustained for a couple of hours though. Our Zestar, Honeycrisp and Pink Lady looked so good this year too. Prolific blooming. There’s an orchard full of Zestars about 5 miles from me. I wonder what it means for them. Sigh.

@Olpea - I may have some pruning questions for you in a future thread. One of my standard peaches (Gala) gotten really tall. It seems my pruning has chased all of the growth to the top. With no fruit to speak of this year I’m giving thought to how I could induce new fruiting wood lower on the tree or some aggressive pruning without shocking the tree too much. I’ll start searching through threads on here first. The Gala peaches from this tree are fantastic.

1 Like

When you want to tag a member, put this symbol @ in front of their handle name. Like this @Olpea

3 Likes

Thank you!

1 Like

Here too. We had record cold temps in the KC area. Saturday set a record for the lowest high for that date (48F for the high I believe). Sunday morning was a record low for that date (31F downtown KC). It was the 12 latest freeze for this area on record.

It was considerably colder south of KCMO where our orchard is located. Two weather underground weather stations near our orchard reported 24F as a low. I’m pretty sure practically everything was lost.

Peaches were at shuck split, apples were at bloom and post bloom. Cherries were at petal fall with some blooms. I’ve been through this before and it generally takes about a week for blooms and fruitlets to drop off. It was warm enough today, I could already see some fruitlets starting to darken.

Two large orchards west of the city hired helicopters to protect their crops. Last I heard the cost is somewhere around $1500 per hour, but that was several years ago. Temps didn’t get nearly as cold west of the city, so the helicopters likely saved their crops. Here is the choppers in the two orchards.

Redirecting...

Redirecting...

2 Likes

Wow. I hope that works for them. I wonder if they’re eligible for crop insurance. Sorry to hear that we’re all in this same boat. I walked around last night and saw lots of frost burned apple blossoms. Hard to say exactly what’s going on with the remaining peach blossoms but I suspect they’ll all be on the ground in a few days.
When this has happened before… have you seen your trees compensate the following year for the lack of production?

1 Like

Peach trees don’t. They will set full crops back to back years, since they fruit from the previous season’s wood.

Sometimes apples can fall into an alternate bearing pattern, if overcropped or thinned too late, since they mostly fruit off spurs. Some varieties are more prone to biannual bearing than others.

1 Like

I noticed that a fair number of branches are essentially barren of leaves and fruit buds. I believe this is damage from December. Am I better off trimming these back? They aren’t dead. They are just very sparse on leaves.

If you need to prune the tree, you could trim those back. Some branches will start to push leaves then die because they were already winter killed in Dec.

1 Like

I already did my normal dormant pruning but I wasn’t as thorough as I should have been. So yes, I suppose this is my opportunity to scale back while generating more fruiting wood for next year.
I really appreciate your time. Thank you.

Are your trees in ground? Did you have milder than average Dec- early Feb like the Northeast?

It was interesting that your stone fruit have survived subzero degrees several time this winter and sustained no damage. It is not the norm, IMO.

This weather station is about 4,500 ft away from us and about 130 ft lower in elevation. I’m hoping we were one degree warmer. Peaches, plums and tart cherries were loaded this year and post bloom / set fruit. Pears and apples were loaded and full bloom. My trees are pretty large. I’m hoping the charts are correct and we have no more than an 80-90% loss. Due to the volume of my trees, that would still be an okay amount of fruit. We still have Wednesday night to go, however, predicted low of 31 but I suspect another night close to 27-28. Right on the edge. Fingers crossed.