NY Going To have Another Bad Year For Fruit

[Nyboy]

Fruit trees where 3 weeks early because of mild winter. All just started breaking bud, last night dropped to teens same again tonight. My friends daughter works at a local orchard same thing happened last year. The owner last year, lite warming pots and hired helicopters to fly over all night. The down draft from helicopters was suppose to keep warm air from raising. Did not work to well had a very bad harvest.

 

[digitS']

Cra-Cra

Olde people shouldn't use Millennial terms. Makes them sound like idiots ...

We will see what NY's mirror image in central WA experiences this year. The drought in 2015 was really hard on the WA State orchards.

And your fruit trees, NyBoy? Are the flower buds actually that close to opening that they would be damaged?

My brother is in a long ago picture covered with soot from the smudge pots used to warm the orchards and fill the Rogue River Valley of Oregon with acrid, horrible smoke. About a half mile from the nearest orchard, our white house would turn dingy with sticky blackness, after a few nights of the mess. I wonder if the Health Departments were the ones that finally shut down smudging! They have something like autocratic power - held over from the era of epidemics, and all.

Between the Coast Range and the Cascade Mnts, that Rogue Valley air was hard to keep clean! Glad in some ways that I don't live there any longer.

Steve

 

[Nyboy]

The ones in White Plains pretty close to opening not sure about country house, its a hour north.

 

[baymule]

The same thing is happening here, trees are blooming too early and there is fear of a frost.

 

[digitS']

Remember that there are annual fruits.

You are making plans for the tomatoes. They are a fruit. Of course, cucumbers are a fruit and we can get a little silly about this fruit/vegetable thing but -- melons are a fruit.

Yeah ! I think that it is a shame that anyone who lives and gardens where they can grow a melon, doesn't. Shoot. Melons can be wonderful fruits and it just takes a few months of attention. I know, I'm talking about "proper" weather for growth. It took me so many seasons to come up with proper varieties and I just hold my breath every year that I have melons. "Improper" weather being the norm for what used to be available in the seed racks.

Steve

 

[ninnymary]

I love melons and I think our weather is just too cool in the summer for them. I tried one of your types Digits and it grew, flowered and I could see the beginnings of melons. But then the plant just froze for months! I think it was Galia something. They were planted in those nursery tree containers so I don't know if that had something to do with it.

Mary

 

[Chickie'sMomaInNH]

i worried this past week at work about the ornamental pear trees outside the building. i noticed the buds getting fat & knew we were in for the cold weather this weekend. i haven't checked all my fruit trees yet to see what they look like if they are showing signs of early emergence. i have a few towards the higher part of the property i see when i go to the coop & those thankfully are still in a dormant state with no bud swelling i can see so far.

 

[Chickie'sMomaInNH]

thinking about this more. why in the late winter/early spring do orchards worry about trying to keep the plants warm when they knew that a warm spell was coming with a chance of cold weather would follow? why didn't they just try to throw some ice blocks on the roots of the trees to see if this would force the trees to stay dormant a little longer? has anyone in the past thought of doing this?

pondering over this & that!

 

[catjac1975]

This has been happening on and off for the last 10 years. My blueberries did not bloom but it could still happen if it warms again. -7 last night.

 

[digitS']

MINUS 7? As in seven below zero, Fahrenheit? Good Heavens! That's cold for March!

It snowed a little here but most of the storm was a little ways south. It blew NE and the Interstate 90 pass into Montana was closed, may still be. More snow in our forecast. I had thought that the lilac buds were swelling when I looked a few days ago but ... that's about the only "floral" indication of a soon-to-be spring that I've noticed.

I love melons and I think our weather is just too cool in the summer for them. I tried one of your types Digits and it grew, flowered and I could see the beginnings of melons. But then the plant just froze for months! I think it was Galia something. They were planted in those nursery tree containers so I don't know if that had something to do with it.

Mary

They were a Galia melon, Mary. What I discovered last year with our near-freezing mid-June weather (sandwiched between days of record & near-record high June temperatures) --- was that Goddess melons were better able to handle those whiplash temperatures. Goddess just shrugged June off .

I had a moment of panic when I looked at the new Stokes seeds. I had written that I'd order Goddess from Stokes. No, it wasn't there! I checked Jung's order (package is still at the post office) and breathed a sigh of relief ... Goddess has become a popular cantaloupe and is available at Harris, Johnny's, Osborne and Jung's - places I often buy seeds. The University of New Hampshire has more of these early melons and a couple new ones came on the market just recently! If I wasn't so risk-averse with the melon choices, I'd broaden my variety selections!

There's our problem with fruit. Not so much it's warm, then it's cold over the course of several days or weeks. That was June, 2016. Every year, it's warm days, then cold nights! That's an arid climate/altitude thing ... For example, I might get a watermelon plant to live right through the season but it will never ripen a fruit. Often our June weather is so cool that melon plants will just (mercifully) die! But, even if they don't die they may struggle through an entire season. Thankfully (Thankfully!), the U of New Hampshire seems to have inadvertently put my gardening conditions into their equations. It's probably something in the water they drink or the air they breathe - kind of like ( @Chickie'sMomaInNH ) , "Gee, maybe we can spread ice cubes in the orchards to keep these fruit trees from blooming before there is a guarantee of continuing warmth!"

Steve