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

  I've been following this thread with great interest. My symptoms were exactly as Doreen describes on both my peaches and apricots with no reason to suspect winter issues. The same thing happened last year, also with no extraordinary winter problems but for a very deep frost, so I started checking around. Dr. Craig Ledbetter at the USDA research station in Parlier CA, absent the temptation to blame winter when peaches and apricots don't bloom, came up with what I think might be the answer -zinc deficiency. He told me that both apricots and peaches are heavy feeders of zinc and need it for bud development. They only do two sprays routinely, one is dormant oil in spring and the other is a fall foliar spray of zinc just before the trees begin to shut down in fall. My soil is deficient in Zn along with boron and copper and haven't put my micro mix on for three years because I mistakenly thought that the micros, once present, stayed in the soil longer than they do. Upon learning all this, I went out and did an emergency foliar Zn spray during what should have been bloom and got about 20% on apricots and 10% on peaches of late but healthy bloom. I think these blossoms came from some of those late developing buds that would have otherwise continued to dry up and fall off just like the earlier ones did and just like what people are describing. I have my micro mix on the soil now and plan a Zn spray in the fall. I don't know if this is the answer or not but it sure seems to be a better explanation for why I haven't had good peach and apricot bloom in either of the last two years than anything else I can see, and that especially includes winter problems.

  Interesting side note: the need for Zn, if that is what this, seems to be varietal which may have some intriguing implications. One being that for those varieties which have a reputation for being a hardy tree with tender flower buds - like Madison and Hardired Nectarine - what if this is really a greater than average need for Zn and the flower buds are hardy? I suspect that Zn deficiency may be responsible for lots of bud death that is routinely blamed on winter kill. What if peach buds are really a lot hardier than we think they are?

 

Dave

Zone4a

 

 

----- Original Message -----

From: Doreen Howard

To: Dennis Norton;North American Fruit Explorers

Sent: 5/11/06 12:45:28 PM

Subject: Re: [NAFEX] No peaches this year

I'm about 25-30 miles northwest of Dennis on the Wisconsin border (Zone 4b-5a) and report the same.  I only have one peach--Saturn, and it had only two flowers.  The tree was loaded with fruit buds, and I figured I'd have a huge crop.  But, all the fruit buds dried up and fell off the tree as the leaf buds opened.  Very disappointing, but not unexpected given the warm January. The fruit buds were plump up until late March.

Doreen Howard

 

----- Original Message -----

From: Dennis Norton

To: North American Fruit Explorers

Sent: Thursday, May 11, 2006 12:23 PM

Subject: [NAFEX] No peaches this year

I don't know about anyone else in Zone 5/5a but we will have very few peaches this year on our 900+ peach trees.  After having consulted with our entomologist who services northern Illinois, Wisconsin, southern Michigan and southern Minnesota, he indicated that is also the case at other orchards in his territory, especially southern Michigan.  Seems like the several +50 degree days we had in January were enough to fake out the peach trees into thinking it was time to come out of dormancy.  Just about the time they woke up, it went to below zero for a few nights and bingo!  We have plenty of buds, but very few blossoms.  Anyone else experience this?  Now, our pears are a different story.  We have more blossoms than we can remember for quite a few years.  Go figure.