North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Stephen Sadler" <Docshiva@Docshiva.org>]

Our freeze here in zone 9b California Central Valley was several weeks ago,
with low temps between 20 and 25 for a week.  I'm surprised at what came
through with little or no damage. We lost our bougainvilleas, which were
dormant; of evergereens, citruses were fine, we lost one of two passion
vines, and our banana came out ok.  So zone 9 in the low twenties, fine -
zone 5 big problems... your freeze sadly came when your plants were very
vulnerable, and set up by the warm early spring; while ours was late winter.
Timing is everything. 

~ Stephen

-----Original Message-----
From: nafex-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:nafex-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of William C. Garthright
Sent: Friday, April 13, 2007 7:04 AM
To: North American Fruit Explorers
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Whose fruit trees didn't freeze?


>     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)