A Late Spring Frost??!!

[Jingles]

Ugh! Last year we had a late spring HARD frost and many of us had zero fruit on our fruit trees last year because of it! At least this upcoming frost isn't so hard, but STILL! Ugh! I can cover our smaller flowering fruit trees, but the big one? How do I keep it from being damaged by the frost? The forecast says it will get down to 30.

Any ideas and suggestions would be greatly appeciated!


Love, Marla in Central IL

[kathyp]

just went through the same thing.  2 nights of 30ish and snow.  the fruit trees were at various stages of bloom.  they seem to have come through it ok.  i did not see a lot of bloom drop and the bees are back to working the trees.

the wet might have saved us.  i think a very dry frost would have been worse.

if it's only a night or so, you probably will get through ok as long as 30ish is your lowest temp.

[mairghead]

Some folks mist their trees to create a layer of insulating ice on the blooms.  I've never done it myself, but have been assured it works.  I think it will all depend upon their location and how sheltered they are.  There is a frost predicted for St. Louis tonight, but my fruit trees are in such a location that only a very few blooms would possibly be affected.  If your trees have any kind of sheltering you should be ok.  I have 11 fruit trees in my back yard and didn't loose much at all in the April freeze last year.  One or two nights shouldn't do much harm though if you aren't as sheltered.  I do know that I run about a zone warmer here than central Illinois.

Another trick the orchards do is tend a fire near the trees on the night of the frost.  I'm not too fond of that since I hate being up late and my local fire department isn't fond of back yard fires in such an urban area.

I did notice this morning that Macoupin Co is in a freeze predicted area according to one of the St Louis news stations.  I don't know where you are in relation to that, but it might be worth investigating the mist proceedure on the net.

Good Luck,
Jackie

[Kimbrell]

I tried spraying water on my fruit trees last year when we had some late freezes.  Sad to say it didn't work.  But our temps were down in the 20's.  It might work if it was just a light frost.