No Anne, doesn’t quite clear things up. Heat conducted up the trunk from the soil sounds interesting as a theory, but is there any research to support this idea?
It’s the first time I’ve read of this idea but if it worked significantly all one would have to do is wrap trees around their trunks and over their canopies to protect them from freeze- but it doesn’t seem to accomplish much where I’ve seen people try this with figs, for instance. Of course this is purely anecdotal.
What works much better is covering a tree with a tarp that is secured to the ground below the canopy radius with no gaps, to trap ground heat around the tree- I’ve saved figs by doing this, but there wasn’t enough conducted heat to protect the tips touching the tarp.
Mike, your link about mulch was not very convincing- just a suggestion from an extension bul. for home growers. Those things are not necessarily carefully edited or science based. Look harder and I think you can find some actual research that will refute your suggestion.
If mulch could delay bloom, I believe you are flat out wrong that some commercial growers wouldn’t be extremely interested- often a week delay would save an entire crop and any light mulch, like spoiled hay would work. The process would be about 100 times less labor expensive than,say, hand thinning peaches.
It is an obvious idea that I’ve seen discussed several times over the years in literature that I’ve lost track of. If I’d found any source that convinced me of its usefulness I’d have adopted the method.
If anyone wants to test it for themselves, probably two trees of the same variety and rootsock standing next to each other would be all you’d need to probably nail it. Just heavily mulch one of them. Not quite full proof if the mulched one has significantly prolonged dormancy, but it would be enough to convince me. Just take a photo.
