North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Alan Haigh" <alandhaigh@gmail.com>]

A couple weeks ago we got a 28F. frost just as peaches and pears had lost most petals.  The asian pears were typically a few days ahead in development and had shown a good floral display.  I had even begun thinning as it is something I can only stand to do gradually. 

 

Now I am observing, not just on my site, but several others that probably didn't get quite as cold, that all the fruitletts have dropped from the trees.  Now I realize that the charts that have been touted recently on this list are known in the industry to be ballpark figures and that freeze damage cannot be precisely ascertained by matching up low temperature with the bud development but I wonder what is out there on information of the frost resistance of Asian pears.

 

The damage to apple, peach, Japanese plum (which were in bloom even ealier than the Asian pears), and European pear doesn't seem significant but apricots are extremely scarce on the sites I've been.

 

On a disastrous late May frost (27F.) a few years back, the fruit that had already set survived better than that which was in bloom.  For instance we got early peaches that year but very few late as later varieties tend to flower later.

 

Zone 6, southeastern NY