North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Caren Kirk <quirky@videotron.ca>]

 Steve,

As far as this list goes I'd say we're neighbours!

Did my pruning yesterday, there was a lot more green on the cuts than 
usual although the buds were all still tightly closed.

Strange insects about with the warm weather, worried that could be a new 
problem.

Not worried too much apart from the apricot, can't do much about it anyway.

I am going to vigilantly monitor the precipitation though.  A couple of 
years back we had a very dry, warm spring and I lost a couple of young 
plants (including a young apple tree) and I strongly believe it was 
through lack of water during the spring (never thought to water in 
spring here previously). With the rapid melt and warm weather I feel it 
could go that way again. But who know, it could rain all next week!

Good Luck for Monday, I've had a success protecting plants in the autumn 
with sheets and blankets, don't know if that's a viable option for the 
scale of your fruit production or if it even works in spring.

Caren

On 3/23/2012 12:13 AM, Steve wrote:
> We live fairly close to each other. You could drive to my house is less
> than 3 hours. After mid to upper 70s all week, I see the forecast low
> for Monday night is 12 degrees F (about -11 C). The apples and American
> Hybrid plums are showing green tips on the buds. The pears and European
> plums mostly are not showing green.
> Apples are so forgiving, I bet they will be OK. I'm not so sure about
> everything else.
>
> Steve in the Adirondacks
>
>
> On 3/22/2012 1:49 PM, Caren Kirk wrote:
> >     Steve,
> >
> > I'm suffering the same weather pattern as you with astonishingly warm
> > weather beating all  existing records by over 10 degrees C. Weathermen
> > say that it'll be over tomorrow but I'm stressed about getting my
> > pruning on the go all the same.
> >
> > The yo-yo temperature pattern we experienced this winter seem to be
> > continuing. I wonder how it will affect all my fruits.
> >
> > Caren Kirk
> > St. Jerome QC
> >
> > On 3/19/2012 10:24 PM, Steve wrote:
> > > On 3/18/2012 10:22 PM, Steve wrote:
> > > > On 3/18/2012 2:34 PM, sherwin wrote:
> > > > > On 3/18/2012 12:49 PM, Steve wrote:
> > > > > > I'm thinking of going out and starting my pruning. It may not seem early
> > > > > > to some of you but it's early here. I usually wait until late April when
> > > > > > the chance of real cold weather is mostly over. I just checked and our
> > > > > > normal high and normal low for this date is 37 and 14 degrees F.
> > > > > > Today it's already 70 degrees and the lows for the rest of the week are
> > > > > > in the 40s. I think I'm going to start pruning, at least the apples,
> > > > > > right now, even though it could easily get into the single digits on any
> > > > > > given night for the next 3 or 4 weeks.
> > > > > > Does anyone think this is a mistake? Apples are pretty forgiving but
> > > > > > what about my pears and plums?
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Steve in the Adirondacks
> > > > >            Steve,
> > > > >
> > > > >            As far as I know, the main requirement for pruning is that the
> > > > > tree is dormant.
> > > > >            Otherwise, you are going to encourage more growth by pruning an
> > > > > actively
> > > > >            growing tree.  So it all depends on how soon you can get out to
> > > > > prune, weather
> > > > >            permitting.  With all this warm weather, if your trees have
> > > > > already woken up, you
> > > > >            may want to postpone your pruning, or at least limit it.  Cold
> > > > > weather should not
> > > > >            bother a freshly pruned tree.
> > > > >
> > > > >                        Sherwin Dubren in Illinois
> > > > The trees are still pretty dormant, very slight bud enlargement at the
> > > > very most. Actually, summer pruning would encourage less new growth, but
> > > > I'm not really worried about any of that on the apples.
> > > > I was more concerned about a sudden return to very cold weather causing
> > > > extra die back at the pruning cuts. Also some concern about the pruning
> > > > cuts being open longer since there may be no growth to start closing
> > > > them until May.
> > > >
> > > > Steve
> > > I'm going to add that the high today was 73, the record high for the day
> > > (until now) was 63, and the record low for this date is 19 below zero.
> > > Normal low is 15 above zero. It's going to feel like a real insult
> > > when/if the temperatures return to normal.    Steve
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