Forecasted Freeze tonight - bye bye apples and Pears

Long Cut said:
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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My most advanced keiffer pears were just starting to leaf out, it'll be interesting to see what this18 degree Saturday morning did to them. But the ten that I just planted bareroot this spring hadn't started pushing anything yet.
 
George said:
Steve I'm interested to hear your thoughts on your damage post cold times.

G
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G, I've been out of town for a few days and just got home this afternoon. I can't explain it, but it looks like my damage ranges from minimal to none at all on apples and pears. This includes the trees that were almost in full bloom. I'm really happy about this, but can't explain it. Based on what I've always understood we should have had severe damage.

Show below is the fruit set on one of my Kieffers, and the same apple tree that I posted at the beginning of this post. Unless something else happens, it looks like we could be headed for a fruit bonanza this year.

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Glad to hear that news Native . I had some damage on my pears, but I would say that more than half of the blooms survived , I am still holding my breath until we get thru early May.
 
Worm said:
Glad to hear that news Native . I had some damage on my pears, but I would say that more than half of the blooms survived , I am still holding my breath until we get thru early May.
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Thanks Worm. Keep us posted and let us know in a few days how it turns out for you.
 
I have had pears get marble size and then turn black and fall from a freeze event. Cut the fruitlet and see if there is any dark brown inside.
 
Turkey Creek said:
I have had pears get marble size and then turn black and fall from a freeze event. Cut the fruitlet and see if there is any dark brown inside.
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After I checked further yesterday, I did find that some of my pears at the farm froze out, but the apples over there seem okay. At my home location I'm okay with both apples and pears. I cut some open like you said and saw no black.

I'm now estimating up to 50% loss of pears at the farm, but I can live with that.
 
30F in the forecast mid week at our property. Guess we’ll see. We had almost no fruit last year due to a late frost.


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It’s going to close for us in NE TX Tuesday night. Everything was going so well...


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Looks like 28 Thursday morning, 31 Friday, hopefully the high wind will help.


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29 Tuesday night and 31 Wednesday night southern IN, but I'm in a valley that often sees lows 2 degrees below the forecast. Rain turning to light snow is in the forecast tuesday night, so maybe that will help a little? Could be turkey hunting opening morning Wednesday with snow on the ground. Pear trees started blooming two weeks ago, about done now. Apple trees in full bloom, so not ideal time for this. Had same thing happen last year, hard freeze first week of May wiped out everything. Starting to think I picked the wrong time to become a wanna-be fruit farmer. Started in 2013, I could fit all the apples in one five gallon bucket (and only be half full, haha), pears it might take 10 buckets. Anyway, good luck to all!
 
“Near record lows possible”, that’s never great news this time of year. We’re looking at mid to upper 20’s two nights in a row in the NC mountains. Snow showers/flurries possible Wednesday afternoon.


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Not something you want on April 20th...it was 74 yesterday...33 right now and low 20’s and clear tonight...
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Good luck to everyone. It’s 32 right now @ 5:43 AM just before sunrise here in NE Texas. Not sure if the wind is blowing or not. Seems like it has laid. Was able to put a sheet over this year’s crop of Concordia Oaks and I have a DCO and Sawtooth in the mix as well. Also covered up this years batch of chestnut seedlings in my large pots I built from cattle syrup tubs so those should be fine.

My early big chestnut trees have already started blooming so it’ll be interesting to see what they do. The late ones should be okay as they aren’t anywhere near blooming yet. Another nice thing about having a late chestnut.

The pecan crop was set to produce an ample amount this year as there wasn’t hardly anything to speak of last year. However, this may have done those in as they are all in the process pollination now and when you have a late freeze like this the small pecans will eventually die and turn black. Sometimes they make it sometimes they don’t. Hopefully it just hovers around 32 and maybe we’ll be okay.

Matt


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