To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: [NAFEX] Damage
Date: Sat, 07 Apr 2007 17:02:41 -0500
Cold and windy today; a half inch of ice over the puddles in the
driveway this morning.
Taking a walk through the orchard & nursery beds this afternoon -
fruits on all the pears, plums, peaches are black & mushy. Blooms on
the apples, cherries, and blueberries are already browning. Foliage
on the pears and apples seems to be OK, at present. Leaves, blooms,
and about 4" of new growth on the mulberries is blackened and
mushy. Heartnuts and Carpathian walnuts were pushing leaves and
catkins, but that's all black and limp now, as are the hardy kiwis,
which were fully leafed.
Most of the grafted pecans, black walnuts, and hickories had not yet
fully unfurled their buds, but many of the seedling pecans are
sporting frozen leaves in the half-opened state. A few of the
Southern pecans had catkins and well developed leaves - but no more.
Most of the established American persimmons were leafing out, those
I'd moved during the winter are still dormant, but those with leaves
are fried. Don't recall what the kakis looked like, though I don't
think they were as far along with leafing out as were the virginianas.
Many of the oaks were leafing out and/or blooming - and all that is
toast; I had some bur oak seedlings in the nursery beds which had 8+
inches of new growth on them already.
Only shot at fruit that I can see this year is if the mulberries
re-bloom. There may be a few late-blooming apples that might make it
through to set some fruit.
I *might* luck out and get some pecans/hickories and black walnuts.
Lucky Pittman
USDA Cold Zone 6
AHS Heat Zone 7
Hopkinsville, KY