What Bud Stage are your Apples at?

20170426_142752.jpg Goldrush planted 4/1. Cool.
 
I'm new at this, and think I usually under-prune my trees, but that looks like it needs some serious work.
Yes I had no apples on this tree last year so I didn't prune it this year
 
Well the NWS says we hit 28 degrees last night .... I suspect there will be some fruit damage, hopefully the tender new leaves on the nursery trees wont be damaged to badly. Here we are 12 days from our average last frost date and we have some of the coldest weather of the last 2 months coming over the next 4 days. That sucks.
 
They are talking 26 tonight, and 25 tomorrow night on my land. Looks like my trees will have another year to grow without having to bear fruit :emoji_angry:
 
Got a light sunburn while mowing on Tuesday, then snow today! Checked youtube fkr ways to protect from a freeze, but none are really doable. My weather app says 29 tonight, so we'll see what happens.
 
They are talking 26 tonight, and 25 tomorrow night on my land. Looks like my trees will have another year to grow without having to bear fruit :emoji_angry:

What bud stage are they at?
 
Got a light sunburn while mowing on Tuesday, then snow today! Checked youtube fkr ways to protect from a freeze, but none are really doable. My weather app says 29 tonight, so we'll see what happens.

One thing that is easy without being on site at 3:00am is to make sure the ground is bare under trees. Black/dark moist ground under trees vs green grass can be the difference a a degree or 2. That can make all the difference in the world.
 
Some at silver, some at small cluster. I have hopes I may still see some apples, but I am not going to hold my breath.


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Forecast was off by about b 6 degrees here, in the good direction, so no damage done.

I saw 28 last night. So a couple higher then the forecast. They are still saying 25 tonight.


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Cut the buds in half you can see if they are toast or not.This one shows some damage. Brown is bad, green is good. In this case from last year we were at green tip. we got down to about 11-12 degrees and it cooked a bunch of the king blossoms. The outer blossoms were fine, so we had a decent crop.........We are at 30 degrees this AM, not quite cold enough for any damage. I'm still at tight cluster to first pink.

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I won't get back up there for a couple more weeks, so by then they will probably be visually showing if they will be producing. It did get down to 25 up there a couple nights ago. Not much I can do about it then wait and see at this point.


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All my peaches are in full bloom and early apples like Ginger Gold and Liberty were starting to open as of this past Thursday so the rest should be rolling along as we speak but looks like it won't be great bee weather with cooler temps and rain showers off and on for the next week after Monday
 
Looks like it could get cool Wednesday Paul. I had the start of king bloom in Liberty, Zestar! and Pristine this morning.

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I am just a bit ahead of you George and our low here for Wednesday at this point is 38 so we should be ok. I am definitely going to have to thin many of my trees this year so I just bought 2.5 gallons of carabyl and was wondering if there is something else I should add or just go with the first spraying with the sevin? It will be my first attempt at thinning and I am not sure about adding other chemicals to the mix as it is very confusing when I read all about the carbohydrate models and temps that need to be considered and at what fruit size.....head spinning but it will be better than no thinning at all.
 
It depends on Temps, sun and variety. Look at the thinning section of the fruit tree guide, you'll see what I mean. Sounds like you read it.

I would probably just try to spray w/ Carbaryl this year and see how you make out. Petal fall and about 10-12mm if needed. Petal fall spray, up to 4 days after petal fall, is a good idea imo. It gives you a week to 10 days to asses. That's normally what I do. Harder varieties to thin ( for me, Macoun. Fuji, and Gala ) almost always need the 2nd spray. There are other thinners, NAA and BA, effective, but they have their timing issues.

The one tip I would really give you that may not be in the book, is that it is hard to over thin using Carbaryl! It's not a real effective spray, but it does work, it will not kill king blossom fruit. It also has the added benefit as a pesticide, so it can be used for that petal fall spray for plum curculio. Like w/ other pesticides, only spray first thing in the morning or at last light so you do not kill bees.

Top worked some trees to Empire this morning. This is all I could do. My Dr. would probably say it was too much but it felt good to do something!

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Thanks George it's what I was thinking and was wondering about the thinning spray as a kind of first cover for pesticide application. I am very sensitive to the bees and have even delayed spraying my carpenter bee infested cabin until petal fall so the bees don't take it to the blossoms. Thanks for the advice George and I have 6 Macoun that are loaded but only 2 Fuji and can hand thin after the first spray. Only 1 gala so far but they are awesome apples
 
Macouns are a real pain!
 
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