Whacky Weather - early-winter bud swell/silver tip on container trees.... what to do?

General Fruit Growing
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For container trees that start swelling/silver tipping in early winter, and will eventually get frozen hard, am I better off letting them ‘get damaged’ early, or later? I’m already counting on losing any fruit for next season, as I can’t protect them all winter (well, maybe the figs), and am not sure it’s worth moving them in tonight. Trees are 2-4 years old, including apple, pear, apricot, miniature peach, sweet cherry, figs.

Optional background:
Weather here on the Colorado Front range has been like it’s never been before (on-record). Weeks in a row of not dipping below freezing, and 55-70 degree days in December. We got snow ONCE! And after the next two day’s chill down to 17 degrees, after that, the long range forecast doesn’t dip below freezing and gets up to 60.

I have maybe 20 trees in containers. Most of which winter over outside. But… most of them (all but 4) are now turning silver tip or bud swell. A few that had some green tip, possibly before our last freeze. Some that the top leaves on the 2nd year trees are still on the tree and partially green!

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Do you have any space to shelter at least some of them along through the winter/spring? It’s super annoying but I’ve had my few miniature peaches/nectarines wake up in late January and I shuffle them in and out of the garage. I wonder if you might take some of the least far along and find a more shaded/cooler location, hoping for the best.

Do you have any in ground trees showing signs of popping? I went out back and looked at all my in ground stuff and couldn’t see any clear signs of swelling/bud break. After last year’s April freeze I really, really don’t want to lose another full crop because of a super early bloom.

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thats why i gave up trying to grow stuff in pots. i killed more plants than i did in ground with my heavy clay soil. in ground at least they are protected from extreme temps at the root zone so less likely they can be damaged from coming out of dormancy.

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I am surprised they had enough chill hours to leave endodormancy and start growing.

I think you are right that you will be lucky to have surviving fruit buds. Once they start to grow, they are no longer able to re-enter endodormancy where they are most cold hardy.

As for the cold now or cold later issue… I attached a presentation that I found helpful when I was thinking about the same thing. Here is my short summary:

  • Just a few days of warm weather means a tree loses cold hardiness.
  • Drops of 20+ degrees F are bad
  • Plants will regain winter hardiness but they only get a degree or two of hardiness per cold day.
  • Temps in the 0-20 degree F range can damage wood if there is a sudden drop or if the tree hasn’t had enough temps near 32F.

So I’d say if there’s any way you can expose the trees to temps 25-35 degrees F beforehand, or lower the temp slowly over multiple days, it will be protective when it gets very cold. No idea if there’s a way to do that practically.

winterhardinesshandout.pdf (9.2 MB)

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Winter hit with a big crash here in Wisconsin, too. I wonder what spring will bring on fruit tree buds.

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same here. it flash froze the leaves on my siberian peaches that are dried green and still hanging. i hope i didnt lose them.

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brrr. @steveb4 and @northwoodswis4 you guys get the (peach, apple, etc) tree killing temps, yeah? Like -25F? Do you have older trees dying of the cold where you are?

My trees can die if it drops quickly or is especially windy. But I don’t really have to worry as much about the low temps killing so many trees in general. My first winter with the fruit trees I had a few days in a row with -10F to 0F and it killed 3 of my 6 one-year-old peach trees. But didn’t hurt any of the older trees.

Also mine are in ground so the roots are generally more protected than @rossn’s.

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the higher the tree is, the less chance of injury so you dont usually lose older trees to cold. 4’ and under are very succeptable. why we pray for deep snow when were growing young trees. snow insulates. up until about 8-10 yrs ago lows of -30 was common with some occasional -40’s. now -25 is about as bad as it has been. this year might be a test year though.

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We haven’t had any temps out of ordinary this year yet, but the sudden drop in temperatures when winter struck are somewhat concerning. I’ve given up on peaches here, after several tries.

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Hi All! Apologies for the delayed response here, as I didn’t see the alerts and only saw this after coming back today.

@Scooter - I have space in the garage, but the issue is that I’m doing extensive construction on the house and soon every bit of the garage will be taken up. At this point, I’m less concerned about saving flower/fruit buds given the construction, rather preventing woody injury. Thanks for the well wishes, and I too hope they can be OK in spite of this whacky weather. I hope your trees hang in there, too!

@steveb4 - the last 4 years have been pretty decent, but here in colorado this winter, things have had a dramatic change in weather from patterns of decades. We get lots of intermittent warm days during the winter, which the trees seem to enure fine in most years. However, if this year is foreshadowing future seasons, I think I might be sunk on the container front. Sadly, I’m sure the ground has not frozen here this year.

@benthegirl - that is really great info with a good reference! Thanks so much! I really wish Amy had cited some resources, especially around slide 26. However, I get the concept. I am surprised that she indicates the cold hardiness is lost so quickly, and do question that a little, given that during a normal winter, we regularly get a few days here and there in January and February where it warms up, but not long enough for bud swell (longer warm spells have happened on occasion).

All this said, it seems to me that her write-up is oriented around trees that have not started to wake up, per-se, with swollen or silver tip buds. Do you agree, or did I miss something on that front?

I think what’s unclear to me still is once that wake up process has started in the early stages, what are truly the woody damage risks? And, at that point, does the re-hardening 1degree per cold day still apply?

Lastly, she mentions a 20 degree drop, but maybe she means quick drops to below 20 degrees? In a typical year, we may have days in the winter that are 50 degrees, with night temps in the teens - or similar variations. I’m not sure we see the damage she suggests in those situations.

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Oh 2019 was worse. The lakes and rivers in the Twin Cities froze over a month early in mid-November with a wave of near zero weather that suddenly came through.

These mid-November ice ins don’t happen often, but as is typical the lakes did thaw by late November and of course refroze in december. Back a season the last days of January 2019 had temperatures of -31 F at the Minneapolis airport. Caused winter dieback reported on this forum.

Flashback story for you with the news greatly exaggerating everything:

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