North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Robert Bruns <r.fred.bruns@gmail.com>]

Has anyone tried mulching the trees heavily in the spring to delay warming of the soil?  Also, does anyone have experience with standard vs dwarf trees?  My standard-sized apricot had severe problems with frost damage when young, but fruited about 3 out of 4 years when it grew to mature size.  My interpretation is that it takes a couple more days for the sap to reach the buds in a larger tree.

 

Fred

central Indiana

Zone 5b

On Mon, Jan 3, 2011 at 10:52 AM, Bill Garthright <billg@inebraska.com> wrote:

Alan is correct. It has been reported that painting the entire tree white, including the buds can delay bloom. I know of no research papers reporting delay by only painting the South side and delaying root thaw.

On the other hand, this is a very simple, very easy thing to do - at least, for those of us with only a tree or two which is particularly susceptible to spring frosts. Obviously, if it does no good, it's a waste of time even then. But if there's been little or no research on it, I might want to make the minimal effort involved anyway, just in case (absent any better ideas, of course).

Would likely not delay apple either. The best possiblilty would be apricot which is the species about which this question was asked. 

Right. I have no need for delaying apple bloom - or the bloom on most of my fruit trees and bushes. I don't even have a problem with peach trees, as someone else here mentioned. It's just my two apricot trees.

So I end up doing a variety of minor things which might not do much - or any - good. Yes, if I knew that for sure, I wouldn't do them. Likewise, if I knew of something else that WOULD work well - and be practical here - I would probably do that. So I was kind of hoping for other ideas here.

Then again, we've had this discussion before, haven't we? So I shouldn't expect anything really new to be suggested this time. Hmm,... maybe I'll just hope for another late spring like last year.  :-)

Bill
Lincoln, NE (zone 5)

http://garthright.blogspot.com/

--
Alas, to wear the mantle of Galileo it is not enough that you be persecuted by an unkind establishment, you must also be right. - Robert L. Park

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