North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Dave Griffin" <griffingardens@earthlink.net>]

  I think this could be very successful but it is a LOT of work. To be
effective tarps have to go on early. I started in late August after the
fruit was harvested - you can't kill a tree from drought after the fruit is
off because it will go dormant before it dies. August had been hot and dry
that year and I had done a lot of irrigation but the subsoil moisture was
low and the topsoil moisture too when I put the tarps on - perfect, I
thought. September continued dry and the ground was extremely dry
everywhere except under the tarps when I checked after about 3 weeks -
tarps are also an effective way to retain soil moisture. To make matters
worse, I found that condensation under the tarps had brought what moisture
there was up to the surface where it was available to the feeder roots of
even the young trees. In a year where everything else was going dormant
early my peaches were lush and green. When I rolled up the tarps to let
things dry out it began to rain, of course. 
  The following year was more typical with a dry August and a rainy Sept. I
put down the tarps in the 3rd week of August and then rolled them up
whenever rain wasn't predicted for a couple of days. The effectiveness of
this was visible by virtue of the yellowing leaves by the time it began to
rain in earnest in late Sept. By then I was so sick of rolling up and
unrolling the tarps I didn't care if the peaches lived or died so I left
the tarps down and que sera, sera. Serando nada as we had a snowless -29F
that winter and any effectiveness was trumped by plenty of other reasons
for peach trees to be injured and/or die. Still, the effect was evident 
and in a better winter it maybe would have made enough difference to pull
them through. I haven't tried it since and if I do it will only be for a
few trees as it takes too much time to do the entire orchard. In the event
of a rainy period in August or early September I doubt if it could be done
- there isn't enough warm weather here after that to get the soil moisture
to evaporate off.

Dave 
Zone 4a 
Central MN


> [Original Message]
> From: Jim Fruth <jfruth@uslink.net>
> To: <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
> Date: 2/22/06 8:11:30 AM
> Subject: [NAFEX] Inducing hardening-off
>
>     A problem that I have with growing peaches here in zone 3 is that the
> trees don't always harden off when they should.  I think there may be a
way
> to get them to do that:  Years ago, I worked at a nursery in Central
> California, in the City of Merced.  Summer rain was rare and many/most
> plants survived by irrigation.  Common Lilac was one of those plants and
it
> wouldn't bloom.  By experiment, we learned that if we cut off the water to
> lilacs in September, that they went into dormancy early and would bloom
the
> following Spring.
>     Some of my peach trees are planted on a slope so I plan to cover the
> ground around them 12' to 20' with polyethylene to get any rain water to
> flow away rather than soak in.  I'm hoping one of you would try a similar
> thing and we can compare notes.
> -- 
>
> Jim Fruth
> Brambleberry Farm
> Pequot Lakes, MN
> www.bberryfarm.com
> Jams, Jellies and Syrups
>
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