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Late Frost North Central

1K views 12 replies 10 participants last post by  R. S. B. 
#1 ·
Sorry don't know if this was posted before but was up my camp in Elk County last weekend. Not one Apple on 5 of my trees. First day of spring gobbler all were full of blossoms. Just hoping the acorn crop wasn't effected as well, although typically up there you can never tell. Anyone else see or report a frost getting all their fruit trees?
 
#2 ·
You are correct that the apples were early to blossom this year. By the first week of May many of the apple trees and some of the oaks were in full blossom. Then on May 8 and 9 we had hard frosts that seems to have cooked a lot of apple blossoms and probably some of the oak blossoms as well.

I have not yet been out looking at the apple trees over a large area but where I have checked it doesn’t appear there are many if any apples. I did see a tree yesterday though that had a lot of small apples on it, so it appears there will be some in some areas.

The oaks though were different this year. I don’t know that I have ever seen such a wide variance on when they were in blossom. Some didn’t blossom until well after the May frost so I am hopeful those trees produce this year. But, on some of the trees I couldn’t even see nay blossoms so it is hard to tell what the acorn crop is going to be this year. We will know more about that in another couple months.

On a more positive note though I saw a bunch of wild grapes forming up on the vines in an area of the game lands yesterday. I don’t yet know how universe they are but it appears that at least some areas should have a good grape crop this fall.

Black cherry are probably not going to produce anything in this area again this year due to the extreme effects of the Cherry Scallop Shell moth. I suspect most of the cherry trees north of the Clarion River will be defoliated within the next few weeks. For many areas this will be the second year in row so we might start to see some of them dying from it. Hopefully not but it is possible. We will just have to wait and see I guess.

The invasive buckthorn is still thriving and rapidly expanding though. That is not good at all.

Dick Bodenhorn
 
#8 ·
FWIW, some of my apple trees have few fruits hanging on, while others are loaded. Are some varieties more susceptible frost? No idea. Grapes, cherries, and blue berries are doing well. Well the cherries not so much, the birds have cleaned most of them off already.
 
#13 ·
I checked the apples trees in another area yesterday and didn’t see even one apple on the trees.

There are probably some out there somewhere in Elk County but so far I have only seen one tree with any apples and it is in town.

Going to be loads of blackberries and elder berries this year though if the weather stays favorable for them to finish developing and ripening.

Dick Bodenhorn
 
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