North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Jay Cutts <orders@cuttsreviews.com>]

Does anyone have any insights into the following strange weather phenomenon?

Recently (I wasn't actually here when it happened) we had some cold 
weather that was not exactly a freeze and yet did serious localized 
damage. Some plants with very tender leaves (peppers, locust, grape, 
mulberry, persimmon) had damage but it was sporadic. One plant might 
loose all its leaves and yet a plant just a few feet a way would have no 
damage or just damage to a few leaf tips. I can understand that there 
might be currents of colder air that might do localized damage but you 
would think that such a mild touch of cold, though it could damage 
tender leaves, couldn't cause the kind of damage that a deep freeze 
would and yet nearly all of my wild plum fruits were destroyed and they 
were already at least a quarter inch in diameter. I believe most of my 
bush cherry fruits were lost, though the Montmorency and chokecherries 
didn't seem to suffer.

How can a touch of cold that is so light that it leaves many plants 
untouched do such serious damage to fruits that are already fairly 
large? The killer is that my thermometer says the low was 51!! (It has 
been acting up a bit so maybe it didn't record the real low. The sensor 
is on the ground in a sheltered spot. Could it really have been 51 on 
the ground in one spot and cold enough to kill fruits just feet away?

This pattern has happened a number of years before. It is distinct from 
a true frost. With a real frost all the leaves would have been lost on 
all the tender trees. With this pattern many plants escape with no 
damage at all or just nipping of the tips of some leaves.

Please help if you have any idea of what is going on. This pattern is 
frustrating because it can happen even when the weather is fairly mild 
and the weather report calls for lows that are above freezing.

Regards,

Jay

Jay Cutts
Director, Cutts Graduate Reviews
Lead Author, Barron's MCAT Prep Book
Lead Author, Barron's LSAT Prep Book (2013)
(505)-281-0684
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