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nafex - Re: [NAFEX] Whose fruit trees didn't freeze?

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  • From: "William C. Garthright" <billg@inebraska.com>
  • To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Whose fruit trees didn't freeze?
  • Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2007 09:04:16 -0500


Let's hear it from everyone.........................whose fruit trees,
vines, bushes, etc. are still undamaged?


I've got a young Illinois Everbearing Mulberry that hadn't broken dormancy, so it looks OK. I don't know if they are typically late, or if it's just because I planted it mid-summer last year (to replace the first, which never broke dormancy after being planted). Now that I think of it, this one was late last fall, too - its leaves froze on the tree when cold weather hit. But it still looks alive.

All my other fruit trees are looking very sick, with blackened, dead leaves (even the apples, which weren't blooming and which I figured might be a bit hardier than the rest). There is nothing green left on the Asian pears - with the solid-black foliage, they don't even look alive. But most of my other trees are trying to grow again, though it looks very patchy.

Regarding bushes, most of my gooseberries weren't fazed by the cold snap, but they get only a little light where I've planted them, so they were just starting to leaf out. The only one that I covered with straw did get damaged, but that might be because it gets more light than the rest (though it didn't seem to be much further along). I covered my clove currants - and other currants - with straw, too, and they're damaged, but not too bad.

Some of my black raspberry canes look terrible, but others are less damaged. I had recently transplanted a bunch of them (trying to widen and lengthen the two rows) and the transplants had just started to leaf out on the short stubs of the old canes. Those leaves are dead, but some that are starting to sprout into new canes don't look too bad. I'm not sure what this will do to the crop this year, but it wasn't going to be good anyway, since I'd cut off so many canes to transplant them.

And finally, I'm not sure about my Concord grapes. They had huge buds, just starting to open, when the cold hit,... and they look just the same right now, 10 days later. They were sort of yellowish-brown in color even before the cold, so I can't tell if they're dead or not. But they're certainly not growing or leafing out.

Sorry, this is more than you wanted to know, I'm sure. For the record, the low temps here were 23, 22, 22, 19, 17, 21. That's after a very warm and sunny March. (It's been cool but better this week, with highs in the 40's and lows around freezing.)

Bill
Lincoln, NE (zone 5)

--
Education has failed in a very serious way to convey the most important lesson science can teach: skepticism. - David Suzuki




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