North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Bernie Nikolai <Nikolai@v-wave.com>]

Here up in Edmonton I had two beautiful 4 year old Honeycrisp on M26 that
didn't leaf out.  The trees went into the winter in super health and we had
a very mild winter, only down to -30C or -20F.  Only the trees on clear
cultivated ground died, and my other Honeycrisp in sod on M26 are leafing
out normally.  I hacked away at the dead trees and found the trunks were
just not getting any moisture from the roots.  It appears root death or
severe damage was caused to the M26 due to the almost complete lack of snow
we had this year.  This caused the temperatures to dive below the critical
-12C level at the one foot level under the ground.  I understand it hit
-14.1C at one foot under the ground level in cultivated soil at the
government test facility.  As a point of interest 4 or 5 years ago we had a
test winter with temperatures at the government test facility hitting
-43.25C, about -47F.  Yet due to the snow the minimum soil temperature at
one foot debth only hit a low of -6.1C all winter.  Snow cover makes a HUGE
difference.  As a matter of interest two trees immediately beside the
Honeycrisp were on Bud 490, and are leafing out normally.  This leads me to
believe Bud 490 is hardier and a safer bet for a zone 3 climate in those
years when there is very little snowcover.  My guess is most of the trees
not leafing out, especially in a normal or mild winter, have partial or
severe root damage caused by a lack of snow which allowed the soil
temperatures to get too cold, even in a mild winter.
Bernie Nikolai
Edmonton, Alberta



At 01:03 PM 5/22/01 -0000, you wrote:
>In Indiana, Maine, and Wisconsin I have been hearing reports of fruit 
>trees not leafing out. 
>We had a very very mild winter here in S WI, and an average spring, 
>no surprises. The only unusual occurrence that I am aware of is that 
>we had an unusally late warm fall with a sudden cold spell, all of my 
>trees had vibrant green leaves when this cold hit, killing the 
>leaves. 
>Two types of trees are having trouble for me this spring:
>Pears that were transplanted last fall, (had to do it when they still 
>had their green leaves as the soil was freezing). The pears that I 
>didn't transplant didn't have any problems. I didn't spring 
>transplant any pears to compare them to. 
>Peaches, both those that bore a heavy crop and those that didn't crop 
>at all.
>All other trees seem ok. I fall transplanted many apples no problems 
>so far.
>Have others had problems in fall transplanting pears?
>Why do you suppose my peaches are struggling?
>Many thanks
>kevin b.
>
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