Late freeze damage report from Englands Nursery in KY

[chickenlittle]

Harsh. I saw a post on Facebook from England's Nursery in Kentucky about the damage from late frost this spring. After their trees leafed out, they got hit with 25F on 4/16 and as the trees started to send out new leaves, they had 27F on 5/10. Plus they've had damage from Ambrosia beetles. On their 40 acres of orchard, there is hardly any fruit and 350-450 dead/dying trees with the expectation that more trees won't recover enough to survive next winter.

https://www.facebook.com/Kynuttrees

 

[Native Hunter]

I've ordered from them in past years and spoke with them on the phone before. I really feed badly for them.

The fruit at my farm about 2 hours west of them was destroyed, but the leaves are coming back out and it looks like the trees are not damaged long term.

Pear Pictures:

 

[yoderjac]

Cliff has been a great help to me as I learned about persimmons. The cold snap here was not as bad. It did not harm any of my persimmons as far as I can tell. It did hit other trees. Some of my chestnuts had leaves when the late cold spell hit and those leaves are now brown and dead, but it was early enough that there are plenty of buds that had not yet opened. At my home, I noticed something interesting. I grafted a bunch of M111 and potted them in 3 gal RB2s and put them on my deck. I did not start them under lights this year. Eventually, all but 2 of them leafed out. I also had a few trees I grafted on M111 and potted up last year where the grafts did not take or where they took but did not have enough growth to plant. For the failed trees, I let the root stock grow out.

I regrafted that root stock when I grafted the new M111. Some of the trees had 3" of growth when the late cold snap hit us. All of the newly potted M111 grafts died as well as any growth from the rootstock. On the other hand, the M111 that was potted last year had no issues. Whether regrafted this year or not, they are thriving on my deck.

I think this goes to show how trees can handle a single stress pretty well and recover, but when they are hit by multiple stresses, they struggle.

I feel very bad for Cliff and his family. Probably the only upside is for folks up north if he is able to stay in business. His persimmons that survived, have demonstrated some pretty good hardiness. I know a friend of mine had been emailing me for a while asking me questions about propagating persimmons. He had some property here as well as up north. He had found a few persimmons up north that survived in some pretty cold temps. He was interested in crossing some of them with trees with known characteristics looking for more cold hardy persimmons. His theory was that up north where persimmons are uncommon, a heavy bearing persimmon would be a huge deer magnet. I'm not sure I agree with his theory, but I hope he is successful. If he is reading this, England's may be a good source for him in his project in the future.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[Troubles Trees]

That really stinks, I am sorry to see this but it is the nature of the game. They are all hard working farmers and it stinks to see this happen to anyone.

Without sounding ludicrous or pointed, I find it odd that they point to 2 similar years where the temps dropped much lower than this year "We have seen TWO other event like this in 1994 when winter temps dropped to -27 Degree F and in 2007 when on the 27th of April after the trees had leafed the temps dropped to 19 degree F", but say a later sentence "TO cut to the chase If you want warranty of Plant material from US you may have purchased you will have to prove to us that you did not plant in any of the plant material in the areas of the Frozen Sectors of this 250 year event". I am not familiar with the nursery, nor am I trying to be too critical as I do feel for them, it just sounded odd when I read it. Maybe just not clearly stated what they meant... or I am just skeptical as I have tried a few times and NEVER gotten a return on a tree that was DOA lol

 

[blueKYstream]

I'm about an hour north of them and had the same events this year. Some of my fruit trees hadn't yet leafed out when the first frost hit. I think all had when the second did. All of my fruit trees have recovered. I wasn't expecting fruit, so I can't comment on that. I believe I lost some 3 year old persimmons and chestnuts, but I don't know how many yet and I don't know if it was from the series of frosts or the 6-8 week drought at the end of summer last year. I have noticed that several persimmons resprouted from the base and others appear to have died when I looked about 4 weeks ago.

I feel bad for any farmers out there. The profit margin is slim, if it exists at all, and Mother Nature is cruel! I hope they can recover and it sets them on a path for success going forward! I haven't bought anything from them before, but perhaps down the line I will.