Is anybody concerned about the trees budding early?

[davek]

Dandelions blooming in the yard today.

 

[HillsideDesolate]

Dandelions blooming in the yard today.

First spring food for the bees

 

[turkeyrun]

Check the mesquite. They NEVER get caught. Mesquite buds, frost is done.

 

[SoonerP226]

There was a forsythia on my place that my dad said was a terrific predictor of snow--when it bloomed in the spring, it was gonna snow soon.

 

[dennishoddy]

Right, ok fair enough… I’m glad the weather and circumstances are considered normal around here.

To be clear: I’m not coming from some weather conspiracy angle

Simply frustrated with the difficulty of growing fruit lol. Surely there are some solutions? Wrap them in plastic before the freeze hit’s maybe?

Before our apple tree died from old age, it always bloomed early and produced many 5 gallon buckets of apples.
It always bloomed in March here in NC Ok, but had to endure a couple of light frosts before spring set in.
What we did was to run a couple of impact sprinklers on it so both sides were covered with the water.
We have a well, with the water running in the 50 degree area during the winter. If you keep putting that temperature of water on the tree, it will preserve the blooms........to a certain temperature.
If the temps get down to the mid to high 20's, the water will freeze on the tree and potentially bring the limbs down with the weight of the ice build up.

 

[Rustytigwire]

So we had a couple peach trees along the driveway not very tall.
There were a few leftovers dried up and mom picked them off on the way to get the mail.
About an hour later I noticed that she had missed one.
She went back down there grabbed it. It squirmed in her hand and flew away.
To her surprise it was a bat had come to roost.

 

[jakeman]

I had an apricot tree. It was here when I moved in. It was a pretty little tree. I lived here 10 years before I knew it was an apricot. It lived another 10 years, and I think it made fruit about 3 times in that 20 years. Then it died, and I cut it up and used it to smoke pork ribs.

The times it did make fruit, they would start to ripen, then in about 2 days they were all ripe and in 3 days they were all on the ground. You didn't wanna ignore it for more than about 12 hours when it had fruit. I learned that the hard way.

from the below link:

I recommend looking at OSU's data on fruit trees.
https://extension.okstate.edu/fact-sheets/home-fruit-planting-guide.html
Also selecting by fruiting time can help with selecting late blooming varieties that are less likely to be caught by freeze.

Also plant at.least.2 varieties for better harvest, even self fertile trees like peaches will benefit from a pollinator.

This is EXACTLY what I experienced with the apricot that was on my place. It was incredibly pretty when it bloomed, and it bloomed every year. I really think it only made fruit about 3 times in the 20 years it was here, and I was able to pick some of them once.

 

[HillsideDesolate]

from the below link:View attachment 351850



This is EXACTLY what I experienced with the apricot that was on my place. It was incredibly pretty when it bloomed, and it bloomed every year. I really think it only made fruit about 3 times in the 20 years it was here, and I was able to pick some of them once.

Apricots can be successfully dwarfed using a bush cherry rootstoxk. That said my former apricot was on the coast and died due to salt air. Currently I am trying
Autumn Royal, a late blooming September fruiting apricot. We will see how it does in about 4 years...
Pick of my former cherry tree, A 4 way espallier, I believe these are var. Stella. Beautiful in spring

 

[BallisticGuy]

I’m not worried one bit. It’s you go back and look at the data over 20 years it’s common.

 

[Timmy59]

I'm more concerned about outside influence than I am of mother nature. Glad we have no tracks near by but the fookers still have airplanes.