Cold one in the NE tonight!

[Bowsnbucks]

I know where Chummer lives and it's beautiful up there. But winter and plenty of snow are a fact of life there. Most years. This last winter - not as bad. IMO fall is the best season up there. Colorful foliage, apples, cider, grapes, honey all found at roadside stands. I too will take snow over 95+ degrees and 90% humidity in the south. I can build a fire & put on some longies ........ can only take off so many clothes !!! Heat and humidity aren't for me. I don't blame Chummer one bit for wanting to stay.

 

[chummer]

I know where Chummer lives and it's beautiful up there. But winter and plenty of snow are a fact of life there. Most years. This last winter - not as bad. IMO fall is the best season up there. Colorful foliage, apples, cider, grapes, honey all found at roadside stands. I too will take snow over 95+ degrees and 90% humidity in the south. I can build a fire & put on some longies ........ can only take off so many clothes !!! Heat and humidity aren't for me. I don't blame Chummer one bit for wanting to stay.

Thanks Bow. We win over everyone that visits. Hard to explain to people how a different world is only a hour away!

 

[WTNUT]

You have peaked my curiosity. I am going to visit Tug Hill. When is the best time to come? Chummer you make a very valid point. If you have large native trees you would think you could get something to survive up there. What varieties do you have that have been planted by you?

 

[WTNUT]

By the way, nearly all of my apples are in bloom or have bloomed by now. I probably have 4 out of 100 that have not bloomed. I feel a little better about the cold weather. Time will soon tell if we have apples. I will say, I have been much more diligent about spraying this year with the oil first, then copper, and now two applications of Imadin and Captan and wow do my trees look healthy. I have also done a better job of keeping grass and weeds out of the cages and fertilized the first of March.

 

[chummer]

You have peaked my curiosity. I am going to visit Tug Hill. When is the best time to come? Chummer you make a very valid point. If you have large native trees you would think you could get something to survive up there. What varieties do you have that have been planted by you?

Unless you want to look at snow, May-October. July and August are the best as we hardly ever get above 82 with night time temps in the 50's. We have a 7 mile long reservoir full of the fish of your choice. There are only a handful of camps on the entire reservoir. Most weekends there might be ten trailers in the parking lot.
Varieties planted starting 3 years ago
Kerr
NY Bonkers (complete fail)
Wolf River
Frostbite (doing very well)
Liberty
Enterprise
Chestnut
Dolgo
Goldrush
Various flowering crabs (all doing good)
Viola crab
Brown Betty
All winter hangover
Trailman crab
Pears
Ayers
Flemish beauty
3 more I forget their name but not doing good
All the crabs seem to be the way to go.

 

[wooduck]

Unless you want to look at snow, May-October. July and August are the best as we hardly ever get above 82 with night time temps in the 50's. We have a 7 mile long reservoir full of the fish of your choice. There are only a handful of camps on the entire reservoir. Most weekends there might be ten trailers in the parking lot.
Varieties planted starting 3 years ago
Kerr
NY Bonkers (complete fail)
Wolf River
Frostbite (doing very well)
Liberty
Enterprise
Chestnut
Dolgo
Goldrush
Various flowering crabs (all doing good)
Viola crab
Brown Betty
All winter hangover
Trailman crab
Pears
Ayers
Flemish beauty
3 more I forget their name but not doing good
All the crabs seem to be the way to go.

That's a great list , just for thought the apple that started the apple breeding work in Minnesota is wealthy and dates back 130 years before wealthy apples were considered to not be able to withstand our winters and there are a lot of great apples bred since all over northern tier , somethings got to flourish where you are .

 

[Maya]

Just took an orchard walk, nice night. Looks like we are right between 1/4 - 1/2" green. I'm looking at being in bloom around May 5, a full 8 days ahead of last spring. Weather looks good on the 10 day forecast. Nothing below 30.

 

[Maya]

Getting towards a full moon....

 

[woodduck]

That's a lot of apple trees :eek: Orchard looks fantastic George!

 

[Bowsnbucks]

This weather has been great the last few days. It looks like a great evening in Vermont, Maya. Hopefully no more nasty cold nights - there or here.

 

[aerospacefarmer]

George I didn't take any pics but did my first cover spray today mostly to try out my new sprayer but I do have a lot of trees that are at between tight cluster and first pink so I do have a fair amount of green showing and we are looking at a rain event tomorrow night of Friday so I put some captan on the orchards. My furthest along are the crabs and some got smoked next its the NY Bonkers which is why they are not good for Chummer since they bloom so early. My Cripps pink and Ginger Gold are far along too because one is early ripen and one needs as many days as possible to get ripe. Honeycrisps still have their heads down lol and should be fine and the Cox Orange Pippin are looking good and ready to pop. Now it makes so much sense to pay attention to bloom time and hang time. Can be a danger on either end with crazy weather patterns. We are looking good here for 10 days so am hoping we are out of the cold woods for this season. by the way my sprayer is fu#$%^&*(tastic lol in case anyone wants to make life easier

 

[aerospacefarmer]

I am learning George lol maybe some day I can come up and be your Pablo lol

 

[Maya]

Glad that sprayer is working out for you. I see one possible cold night for the rest of the spring, Saturday night, but they are talking 30 here. Given that we should be fine.

 

[aerospacefarmer]

Glad that sprayer is working out for you. I see one possible cold night for the rest of the spring, Saturday night, but they are talking 30 here. Given that we should be fine.

Same here but 30 won't be a problem even if full bloom I just hope they are correct

 

[Maya]

Same here but 30 won't be a problem even if full bloom I just hope they are correct

You just need to hope that you get no frost.

 

[Maya]

My rep from CPS just came over. He said everyone up here is looking good and expect things to be fine this spring. He did say the Hudson Valley over in NY took a hit. We looked at a bunch of my buds. King bloom took a hit on roughly half of much of the varieties, maybe two or three blossoms on each bud were hit in Gala and Zestar!s, but we think I'll be ok. We went through a bunch of nutrition things. I've got a lot of work the next few weeks!

Here's a few deer outside one of my orchards at the farm. No winter to speak of here and there are tons of deer, especially yearlings that would normally take a hit in our nasty winters.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

Good to hear you're in pretty good shape on the orchard. What did the rep suggest as far as nutrition ?? Was it a " remedy " for any damage from the cold snap ??

 

[Maya]

A yearly Zinc and Boron program helps strengthen buds/blossom development. The stronger the buds/blossoms, the more they can help with cold damage. I use Polyram the next couple sprays for zinc, I've got that on hand. Need to pick up some Borisol or Solubor for Boron. I don't worry with deer apples though unless there was a problem.

 

[aerospacefarmer]

A yearly Zinc and Boron program helps strengthen buds/blossom development. The stronger the buds/blossoms, the more they can help with cold damage. I use Polyram the next couple sprays for zinc, I've got that on hand. Need to pick up some Borisol or Solubor for Boron.

George are they all restricted use chemicals? I studied for private applicators license but didn't take test yet

 

[Maya]

I'm not sure, but every state is different. You have to check Pa.. Polyram is a EBDC fungicide, good on scab and can be used to add zinc. I use on a couple prebloom applications each year. Borisol is just a maintenance application of a quart per acre which is about normal for our soils in most of Vermont. ( Always go by the labels though... ) You really need to do a soil test to see what your soil tests are deficient in and a leaf analysis in late july to see what nutrients the trees are uptaking from the soil. For salable apples this is common practice. You need to get your PAL pal!!! ;)

For deer apples, I don't bother with all this unless there is a problem, but I think a soil sample is always a good place to start before planting.

Two more weeks and we will be seeing this here!