From: "William C. Garthright" <billg@inebraska.com>
To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Whose fruit trees didn't freeze?
Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2007 09:04:16 -0500
Let's hear it from everyone.........................whose fruit trees,
vines, bushes, etc. are still undamaged?
I've got a young Illinois Everbearing Mulberry that hadn't broken
dormancy, so it looks OK. I don't know if they are typically late, or if
it's just because I planted it mid-summer last year (to replace the
first, which never broke dormancy after being planted). Now that I think
of it, this one was late last fall, too - its leaves froze on the tree
when cold weather hit. But it still looks alive.
All my other fruit trees are looking very sick, with blackened, dead
leaves (even the apples, which weren't blooming and which I figured
might be a bit hardier than the rest). There is nothing green left on
the Asian pears - with the solid-black foliage, they don't even look
alive. But most of my other trees are trying to grow again, though it
looks very patchy.
Regarding bushes, most of my gooseberries weren't fazed by the cold
snap, but they get only a little light where I've planted them, so they
were just starting to leaf out. The only one that I covered with straw
did get damaged, but that might be because it gets more light than the
rest (though it didn't seem to be much further along). I covered my
clove currants - and other currants - with straw, too, and they're
damaged, but not too bad.
Some of my black raspberry canes look terrible, but others are less
damaged. I had recently transplanted a bunch of them (trying to widen
and lengthen the two rows) and the transplants had just started to leaf
out on the short stubs of the old canes. Those leaves are dead, but some
that are starting to sprout into new canes don't look too bad. I'm not
sure what this will do to the crop this year, but it wasn't going to be
good anyway, since I'd cut off so many canes to transplant them.
And finally, I'm not sure about my Concord grapes. They had huge buds,
just starting to open, when the cold hit,... and they look just the same
right now, 10 days later. They were sort of yellowish-brown in color
even before the cold, so I can't tell if they're dead or not. But
they're certainly not growing or leafing out.
Sorry, this is more than you wanted to know, I'm sure. For the record,
the low temps here were 23, 22, 22, 19, 17, 21. That's after a very warm
and sunny March. (It's been cool but better this week, with highs in the
40's and lows around freezing.)
Bill
Lincoln, NE (zone 5)
--
Education has failed in a very serious way to convey the most important
lesson science can teach: skepticism. - David Suzuki