Forecasted Freeze tonight - bye bye apples and Pears

Native Hunter

Native Hunter

Well-Known Member
Tonight for my county - One station giving 17 degrees, Accuweather giving 21 degrees and Weather Channel giving 25 degrees. And we are in full bloom.

Oh well, hopefully I will have some chestnuts and persimmons this year....easy come....easy go....

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Im in Central Virginia. Most of my pears are close to full bloom ( some more-some less ). Its 6 am and we are at 27 degrees. Will probably drop a little more before the sun comes up . I got cleaned out last year and its not looking good again with temps going even colder tonight .
Hopefully, there will be enough blooms that are still closed up and can survive these temps but Im not overly hopeful .
My Kieffers seem to bloom earlier than most .
 
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Sorry to hear this impending doom. Last year was a tough year for fruit trees, hopefully it's not going to be as bad as that. It's 26 degrees here in Pee Aye this morning, but we don't have any trees blooming yet, so we should be ok, and there aren't any more freezes in the 2 week forecast.
 
My thermometer on the deck is showing 22 right now, and Accuweather is showing 23. Weather Channel is showing 26. Radio station just said 25.

Below is a link to a chart that I've seen before. Not good....90% kill at 25 degrees, but other factors come into play and this is not exact. There is always hope until all hope is gone.

https://www.canr.msu.edu/fruit/uploads/files/PictureTableofFruitFreezeDamageThresholds.pdf

Last year we made it all the way into May with no problems. Then suddenly we had a freeze that broke all kinds of records. I had pears nearly as big as dimes, and it killed them (and most everything else) graveyard dead at my farm. Where I live, which is 11 miles away, we were just a tad warmer (maybe a couple of degrees), and I had good crops of both apples and pears.

Persimmons, chestnuts, chinkapins and oaks will all be fine in an early April freeze like today, but when you start freezing in May, lots of things will be in trouble,
 
Might be lucky at our place, neighbor says no blooms yet. It was 17F this morning.

Full bloom on the coast, it was 35F here in VA Beach this morning.

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Ironic but good situation - at my farm, 20% of my apple trees are in a low place that tends to be a frost pocket. Just checked and most apples are not even leaved out yet and not near making blossoms. This is because it has been colder down there making the trees late. So a frost pocket may save me from a frost this year...lol.
 
We got down into the upper twenties a couple nights ago. The only trees bloomed out were kieffers; amazingly they seemed to survive just fine. Blooms still look good!
 
Got all ours this morning. All the new growth on the chestnuts too. Looks like after 5 or 6 years of that they would adapt to start growth later.
 
THE LLC said:
Got all ours this morning. All the new growth on the chestnuts too. Looks like after 5 or 6 years of that they would adapt to start growth later.
Click to expand...

Sounds like me last year with the late freeze. My sawtooths bounced back after having to grow new leaves and made acorns, but my chestnuts didn't even try. Keep us posted.
 
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Native Hunter said:
Sounds like me last year with the late freeze. My sawtooths bounced back after having to grow new leaves and made acorns, but my chestnuts didn't even try. Keep us posted.
Click to expand...
Mine did the same last year...I was sure they were doomed but likes yours they just put on new leaves and made acorns...
 
This is a first for me as far as I can recall, frost seeding clover and brassica on a half acre shooting plot on April 3rd in zone 6b. It was 18 degrees at sunrise and the ground that I had prepped the day before was frozen hard as a rock. Where's climate change when we need it?
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Could use some of that climate change/global warming around here. At least that would make this miserable part of the Country more livable. Anyways my apple trees will not bloom until the second and third week of May. Believe it or not sometimes we still get frost damage.
 
A bunch of my Gobbler Sawtooths began pushing new vegetative growth and this frost smoked 90% of them. All fresh leaf tips curled and black...
Glad I held off on planting pears this winter!
 
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