I am one who has several times had decent crops when temps dropped down to -15 but back then most varieties I grew were known to be fairly hardy. Last winter's temps did damage the crops on more tender varieties- especially nectarines, but most types here needed a lot of thinning. I think it got down to maybe -12.

There are a lot of variables at play here, from moisture levels when trees are going into dormancy to the slope of dropping temps preceding severe cold, Solid cold or warm spells-- the list goes on.

I've had years where flowers on most vigorous shoots were destroyed on certain varieties but the crap wood had viable buds. If you are afraid your buds may be burned or you can see some damaged flowers it can be a good idea to wait till bloom to prune so you make sure you don't cut off viable buds when there aren't many.

Don't think I'd sweat it yet Clark: from December, 2013 thru March, 2014 we had temps ranging from -1 to -10 and it didn't bother my Reliance and Redhaven one bit, lots of hand thinning had to be done. I'll look up last winter next but, no problems this last Spring. For that matter, only 8 years ago when the Reliance was in it's 1 st leaf did we have temps that scorched it's fruit buds. Will post last winter's temps later.

Mike that's a good question and I had not considered that. I doubt anyone knows but I'm willing to grow some of those pits and find out next time. Fruitnut you made me feel a lot better about all this wind we have here! Eboone a couple of my trees had a good crop and most of them produced a couple of peaches only. Reliance did the best of any of the peach trees. lkz5ia I'm wondering if the hills are an asset because I raise more fruit in my high ground than lower ground i'm assuming because frost sits down low. cckw that's interesting i'm learning a lot about wind chill from this discussion. Thanks Drew that is great information. I was looking for \temps like that because I might be able to blanket the trees at the time and save a valuable crop. Olpea when you say we have spring to get through that is spoken like a true Kansan. The temperature information / description you gave is very valuable. Thank you. plumhillfarm I think I got the wrong idea why people wrap their non cold hardy trees it's just for warming but not to block wind chills. I figured that wind did to trees what it does to us. Harvestman I guess I will wait and see how it goes. There are a lot of variables. Thanks for the information! Michael357 reliance are great trees in my opinion.

Clark: my Reliance tree has been great, makes excellent nectar and enough of it for me to drink for an entire year. No disease or insect problems to date, have never irrigated it, shrugs off my ham-handed pruning and training and still produces tons of fruit that get thinned. Yes, some here will rag on the variety but nobody has a right to criticize my particular tree until they have walked in my shoes here. BTW, OLPEA convinced me to try a Redhaven, it's in it's 3rd leaf now, looking forward to tast testing 1 or 2 this year to see how crappy Reliance really is :)

Don't forget to protect the trunks on your trees from sun scald with these relatively warm, sunny days with snow on the ground turning to really cold nights.

How many of you have recording thermometers. You know...will record the daily low and high?
I do not have one but I think I'm going to go shop for one. That kinda stuff is cheap anymore.

The night H'man is speaking of that got to -12 was the coldest night here last winter also. It got to -9 here, but my buddy only a few miles away but roughly 1000' higher recorded -14. I stayed up all night that very night having a "few" beers and just watching the temperature. When it began to really ice down it was the most precipitous slide ever, falling more than 1 degree every 10 minutes for 1 hour. Unless someone had a recording thermometer or stayed up all night watching they would never really know for sure what the lowest low was. In the early morning temps swung 5 degrees in just an hour or so. I guess in flat land the temps are more even, but viscious winds move a lot of air around quickly.

Olpea and H'man I'm sure you both have recording thermometers, but most do not. When 3 or 4 degrees have big impacts I'm not sure other's witnessed lows can really be relied on all that much.

My Taylor high low thermometer is in a specially built station box in the orchard and is stated to be accurate to + - 1.5 deg. F. When the low temps start going up higher I put a Taylor orchard thermometer accurate to + - 0.5 deg. F in the box too. I can do better by asking our local NWS observer for his temps, his station is about 1000 ft from mine and at the same elevation. We often agree on the 24 hour highs and lows, much to my surprise.

Apple,

I don't have anything as sophisticated or accurate as Michael's personal weather station.

I just have a digital thermometer which has a remote that can be placed anywhere w/in a reasonable distance of the base. I think I got it at Home Depot for around 30 bucks. I placed the remote in a shaded spot about 5' off the ground.

Yes I have a hi-low record on my therm, but here temps in winter usually reach the lowest point right before dawn and I'm always up in winter well before dawn.

I have a cheap La Cross I got on-line for somewhere in the $30-40 range.

Apple,

I should have mentioned I think just about any of the digital thermometers have a high low feature on them. I've owned two since I've lived here and both had high low feature.

Agree with Hman, the coldest temps are generally sometime close to dawn.

Neither of my digitals have the high/low feature but I was looking online last night and you're right...most (but not all) do indeed have that feature.
Wally world has an accu-rite for $9.97 that has it and has great reviews. Both of mine are huge and most of it's space is used up with a stupid clock, followed by moon phases etc.
$49 will get you a multi-color screen with all kinds of features including humidity, barometric pressure, trending, and a weather forecaster thanks to the barometer.
I'm going to snag one of those $10 ones...better than staying up all night and cheaper in the way of beer savings.

OLPEA: get an FFA or 4-H kid to read your thermometer (s), you place and purchase the thermometers and train the kids. Make it educational and involve them as much as possible. If that won't fly, how about the family :)

Have fun in the freezing rain coming your way. Coming down for a quickie at KU Monday, may be returning 3-4 months later. Maybe finally we can meet up then, I sure hope to when the weather improves.

You bet Michael, would like to finally meet you in person.

You might want to look over this link from PSU, Clark.

Here is a link that might be useful: Low temp injury in peaches

Thanks for the link that's a very good article!

Sure Clark, are you chomping at the bit to get out and do some evaluating now? I'm going to wait until February myself.

55 degrees today. I went out and check on all the peaches and nectarine. They all looked good. Hopefully, I will have a nice harvest next summer.

Tony

Trees are looking good here as well Tony. I'm pruning and burning very soon. Michael once spring gets here the work doesn't stop you know. I collect scion wood in mid to late February and plant potatoes and greens in march. I also tap my big maple tree for syrup. Get the garden beds cleaned up and burned. I usually add manure and wood chips around the base of my fruit trees that need it. I'm determining if I feel like growing strawberries this year and I'm leaning toward ever bearers. I'm also strongly considering expanding my juneberry production.

Juneberry meaning saskatoons aka service berries aka ....see the wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amelanchier. Not the June bearing strawberries though I will likely plant some of those time permitting. .

Here is a link that might be useful: Juneberry

Time is now for me, time to plant onion seeds, and soon peppers, followed by tomatoes. then some flowers I need to start indoors. I will be busy as heck! I always make my own tomato sauce, and I will be evaluating some varieties direct from Italy this year. I make my own paprika, and green chili's for various dishes. I may smoke some paprika this year for added flavor. I obtained a few varieties directly from Hungary this winter. I have been to Jamaica 4 times and just love jerk sauce I'm excited as I obtained some seeds of the rare MOA (Ministry of Agriculture) Scotch Bonnet seeds, so will make an even more authentic jerk sauce, Of course for chicken, but jerk gravy on fries is to die for. I'm also growing three varieties of jalapenos peppers to pickle and to make jelly with.
It's fun to grow pole beans too, easy to grow, the plants produce like crazy, purple, red, yellow and green pole beans this year.

My trees and fruits look fine too. It's going to be a good year with a very large harvest.

Sounds great Drew lets hope the winter stays mild. The last few days have been 50-60 here which makes it easy to work outside.

Looks like the rest of the month is above zero here, which is good. February can be brutal though. Last year at this time the worst weather already happened so I'm optimistic.
I bought 2 trees, and looking at a third. I wasn't going to buy anymore, but cannot help myself!

Clark: I let my Junebearing strawberries go U mulched which likely will kill the fruit buds. The bed is too full of bindweed and I'm sick of hand pulling it all Summer long. Think I'm going to raise the bed a foot with weed free soil and start over. Yes, it does get busy come Spring time between fruits and veggies.

Michael before you put the soil in line it with cardboard. It will degrade and add to the soil with time, but will keep any weeds from coming up through the new soil. I always do this when raising the soil level. Works really well. Some weeds cannot come through anyway but a few can just grow to the top. Some of my beds used for annual vegetables and flowers have huge amounts of organic matter in them. So each year they shrink down a few inches as the material decomposes. I line them in the fall with cardboard and add new organic material. I know you can't do this with strawberries. I have the same problem. Plus another I have pineberries, and some cultivars are near impossible to find, so I need to keep them. Next year I may pot a few examples of each and redo the bed.
With my annual beds the cardboard works well in keeping all the weed seeds that landed in the bed over the summer from germinatiing.

Clark, bindweed is a real bugger, , I might go with landscape fabric on the sides and bottom, it'll be there for many years battling the bindweed trying to sneak in from deep underground. The bed will be raised also to promote earlier fruiting and give me a good base to attach hoops for early frost protection. I know, sounds contrary, doesn't it?

Michael357,
Yes that wood mulch etc only lasts so long but it's great for the soil. If your going to raise the bed or not I would line it on the inside with a soaker hose and if bind weed is a big problem I would use a plasticel setup. The plastic would keep the water in and the weeds out. That should eliminate the weeding. Cats etc sharpen their claws on landscape fabric and it rots at least in my experience. Heavy duty plastic should last years. Strawberry beds are something I usually plan to get 3 years out of.

Drew we use cardboard between tomato rows here sometimes. We find the plain cardboard because we don't want all the inks etc in the dirt when the worms break the cardboard down. I like your raised beds you made.

Thanks for the thoughts Clark but, I've decided on the woven, heavy landscape fabric for the current ground surface and up the sides of the bed border boards. Water will be able to flow downward through it avoiding the creation of a swimming pool that could kill the roots from heavy rain as well as keep the soil surface wet leading to foliage and fruit disease problems. The fabric will be buried, poor kitties:)

What's a plasticel setup?

The irrigation system will be 1/2" poly drip tubing with factory installed emitters at 1' spacings.

I meant to say plasticulture. I'm going to try it for the first time myself on a large scale. The other methods to your point makes weeding a bigger hassle than necessary. Wood mulch is broken down within 3 years and straw lasts one year.

Here is a link that might be useful: plasticulture

This post was edited by ClarkinKS on Wed, Jan 21, 15 at 22:50

Kansas flipped the other direction two weeks ago and today we got up to 80 degrees. Now it looks like the heat could cause the trees more problems than the cold.

That's just so surreal, it's 22F here right now, tomorrow into the 30's back to the teens after that. No end to this winter.

Drew It can just as easily go from 40 to -5. It catches our blooms far to often because of these false springs or summers we get. It is very dry this winter overall. It's not drought like yet but it certainly could be another dry year.

Yes, I'm concerned you guys are in trouble. It really sucks. You are inches away from total crop failure.
And we are not that far apart, that is what is so strange.
That conditions vary that much.
CA is super warm too, but they never were cold, so are in better shape. Except some like cherry growers are not meeting chill requirements.

It's still really up in the air here. As Clark mentions, it's been unusually warm here, but cold weather is starting to move in.

The maples are starting to bud out, which generally happens in Feb, but the question remains if the more tender fruits will slow down and go back to sleep with the colder (more normal) temps moving in.

Olpea, how often has there been spring in Feb there since you were paying close attention? By spring I mean green tissue showing.

Thanks for the link Clark. I'm well aware of what plasticulture is having done 8 years of vegetable crop nutrition research on plasticulture systems with veggies in FL.

"Olpea, how often has there been spring in Feb there since you were paying close attention?"

I don't believe there has ever been spring in Feb. here, at least in my lifetime. Since I've been recording, the earliest bloom for peaches has been the middle of March, which is my concern.

I didn't write down all the details, but I think it was unseasonably warm Jan. weather which forced the buds early that year, but it's possible I've got years mixed up.

It is unusual to see maple activity here in Jan.

Olpea, you can look that up if you remember the year. I've never had January temps affect dormancy here, and fruit trees seem easily turned back by subsequent cold if they aren't noticeably breaking after fairly long warm periods here- but this is just memory and anecdote. I clearly remember an April snow setting back bud break for almost two weeks years ago.

For this reason I don't start panicking about warm weather until March as a general rule. The first such panic didn't pan out as April had no hard frosts- a rarity. The second I got scorched.

The weather here looks like we will be in the deep freeze until March at least. Not looking forward to Mondays pruning assignment- temps barely get out of single digits if forecast is correct.

Hman,

I looked in my records. Since I've been keeping records (2006) the first full bloom on peaches was 3-13-12.

I didn't make any notes as to why the peaches bloomed so early that year, but I thought it was due to mild winter temps. I'll admit your experience has me questioning that recollection.

Maybe someone (if they want) can look up historical winter temps that season for this area. I'm not savvy enough on the internet weather sites to glean this information.

Since I've been keeping records, the latest first full bloom on peaches was 4-15-08.

About a month variance b/t the earliest and latest bloom over the 9 year period I've been keeping records.

Interesting info. Our area must be colder as 4-15 would most likely be the earlier date. I have not had my trees long enough to have any records! I guess I should keep them. OK, that will give me something to do!

Olpea-

Olathe, KS shows 2006 (Jan-April) being warm. Had 2 days in the single digits (2F) for lows in late Feb. Had 60Fs occur both Jan/Feb...lots of days in the 40Fs/50Fs//... March started off very warm (upper 70Fs)> March 24th/25th both dropped to 24F which may have caused some issues?

Olpea, l looked up Jan, Feb and March and it was apparently the hot spell that started Mar 1st that caused the early bloom.

Here is a link that might be useful: topeka weather

Frank,

Thanks for going back and looking, but the year which had the earliest bloom was 2012, not 2006. I probably didn't write that clear enough earlier.

Hman,

You're right. Jan and Feb had a little higher temps than normal in 2012, but March was quite a bit warmer.

From the Website you linked, Jan. 2006 was the warmest Jan (I moved the location to Kansas City-much closer to me) since I've been keeping bloom records.

That year, the ave. high temp for Jan. was 52F, while the normal high temp for Jan is 40F.

The ave. temp for Jan. 2006 was 43F, while the normal ave. temp for Jan is 31F.

As Frank mentioned March 2006 started off warm that year but then dropped pretty quickly. My records show a peach bloom of March 30 for 2006, which is about normal.

My take away from all this is that Jan. temps haven't seemed to affect fruit bloom (at least in my area) which was your point.

I suppose the real danger of warm Jan. weather may be premature de-hardening of wood before winter is really over.

The warm Jan. weather this year has caused maples to start to bud, but maples come out very early anyway. Of course waking up early doesn't seem to hurt them.

This post was edited by olpea on Sat, Jan 31, 15 at 8:57

Olpea, it is all very complicated and difficult to get a really firm handle on because there are nothing but variables. Any research on the subject of going into and out of dormancy is full of half answers which means you are left with plenty to worry about. You can't be sure how your trees will react to any given situation.

Glad I don't directly sell fruit for a living, although I get just about as upset by crop failure anyway.

I looked up last years temps for my location. There were seven days with overnight lows below -10°F, with the lowest overnight temp being -18°F in mid February. Daytime highs were well above zero in all cases. It seems like I should have had some buds survive, yet none did.

That makes be wonder if 7 overnight dips to -13°F would do more cumulative damage than a single night dip to -18°F.

Olpea, I was here in 2006 but our weather station here recorded the following for January : avg. max = 53.2, normal = 38 deg.. Guess it was a warm one.

NYrockfarmer it only got to -14 here and all my buds were dead. Plus at -18 it very well could have been -22 in some spots, and -16 in others. This year -4 was the lowest so far.
Looking good! And again as stated above from Michigan State University concerning peaches
peach fruit buds are damaged once temps reach -10 degrees. Most damage at -13 all are dead at -16. branch damage at -20 to -25.

Seems like in your case they were spot on correct!

Thankfully temps dropped back down to 5 degrees. It looks a lot better than it did a week ago.

Don't get too cozy inside. Looks like summer is back for us next week!

A bit of drifting snow tomorrow first Jag, then Summer.

As long as we get some nasty weather like this the trees won't break dormancy. I'm concerned the trees may wind up as confused as us. It may wind up snowing in July when I'm harvesting peaches :0)