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5-1-2010 Alb,Los Lunas Zone 7 Freeze Results w-Pics + Survivors

13 years ago

So, my orchard made it OK for the most part thru our late freeze. We hit 32F here. My apricots and plums (trees 10+ years old) survived with me spraying them with water. Minimal fruit loss.

Now for my figs,all were sprayed with water until 12AM. Almost the trees had severe damage, but some came thru with little to no damage on the trees. Most trees were 2 years plus old.

Here is my list:

Row 1 (little to no damage on foliage):

Paradiso - Gene

LSU Purple

LSU Gold (severe damage, all green growth dead)

Gene Sals

Wuhan China Fig

Col De Dame Grise

Row 2 (little to no damage on foliage):

Val Camonica Italy Fig

Melanzana Merdoscola

Violetta (low damage)

Aldo Sicilian Fig

Hells Canyon Idaho Fig

Sierra Fig (no damage)

Sequoia Fig (no damage)

BC Pops Fig

BC Zucchini Fig

Vasilika Sika

Sals Gene

Row 3 (little to no damage on foliage):

Marylane

Naples White

Longue D'out

Capelas

Blanca De Maella

Idaho Fig x 2

Desert King

Row 1a (unprotected open area, low damage)

Los Lunas

Violetta

Row 2a (little to no damage on foliage

ABQ-1BB

Row 3a (little to no damage on foliage

Greektown #3

Now for the pics:

Freeze Damage

Desert King

Tree without and with damage

Paradiso Gene

LSU Gold Damage and Sals no damage

CdD Grise

Damage

Sierra and Sequoia Figs - No Damage

Hells Canyon Idaho Fig - No Damage

Damage

Pops Fig - No Damage

Zucchini Fig - No Damage

Vasilika Sika - No damage

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Comments (7)

danab_z9_la
13 years ago
You are putting together one fine fig collection and orchard. Good to see your pictures and the minimal damage to your trees.

Dan
paully22
13 years ago
Congrats to the up-coming fig orchard. Glad your young trees came thru I would say very well. 3 seasons ago I had the same experience & it took at least a whole season for the trees to recover. Anyway, I had severe cold burns to my fig trees last Oct and most tender tips were fried by the extreme cold artic winds that came down for at least 3 days, especially the UCD ones. All leaves of my trees were lost BUT now, they are all sprouting nicely. The bonus is that they survive & are leafing robustly. Glad I cover the trees on the 2nd day with tarp. Surprisingly Desert King, EBT, Latarrula, Osborne Prolific and Tony's Greek took the punishment very well(not covered by tarp) and is giving lots of brebas.
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loslunasfarms
Original Author
13 years ago
Guys, I guess what is interesting is that some trees, side by side got damaged while others did just fine. The damage was quite bi-modal.

Heck, the trees I would not expect to do very will came out with little to no damage.
rafed
13 years ago
Jose,

I think the damaged ones will spring right back up bigger and stronger than ever.

Remember, It was only one night ( just a few hours )of freeze. The watering of the leaves helped very much.

Can't wait to see the pics of the orchard as it progresses. That's when I wish I lived in the South. Keep up the good work.

Rafed
Scott F Smith
13 years ago
Jose, the coldest temps are right before the sun comes up so next time I would get up at 4-5AM and spray until sun up. The water doesn't protect, its the active freezing that warms the tissue -- freezing is exothermic, it generates heat.

Scott
danab_z9_la
13 years ago
Early watering of trees before a night time freeze ABSOLUTELY does give some protection in a "dry" climate or in any area of the country, for that matter, during a period with a low outside relative humidity. I would do exactly what Jose did to INTENTIONALLY increase the relative humidity around my little in ground trees. Water vapor is by far the largest green house gas that we have....man made or other wise....(Al Gore and his Global Warming crowd & our news Media would prefer that you not know this science fact). By increasing the water vapor in the areas around these trees, you WILL effectively trap some of the ground's "radiation" heat around those trees. What is trapped by this added water vapor is some of radiation heat that is quickly lost to the atmosphere after the sun goes down. Ever notice how hot a desert is in the daytime......and then how cold it is at night???? This large variation in temperature occurs simply because there is no humidity (water vapor) in the desert air. If there was some water vapor in the air, the daytime and night time temperatures wouldn't swing as much. If you could somehow increase the relative humidity of the desert air, it simply would not get as cold at night.....nor as hot during the daytime.

I do agree, however, that there is also some good benefits to watering at the time of coldest temperature (closer to sunrise)....due to the latent heat of fusion effects that occur right at the freeing point (melting point) of water as it starts to change from the liquid phase (water) to the solid phase (ice). Too, it is because of this same latent effect that provides protection to fruit trees that have ice already on the branches. Keep the water sprinklers on even when you see ice (or frost) on the leaves and branches and this latent heat will keep the temperature from dropping below 32 deg. F.........that is a warm enough temperature to save a lot of trees from severe damage.

Too, if somehow you can't prevent plain ole frost from forming on your trees (which can easily occur at temperatures as high as 40 deg F in my area)..........get at them with a sprinkler or hose pipe as soon as you see it and you WILL PREVENT some damage. I can get these kinds of "surprise" frosts in my area once in a while when the weather man was a bit off with his forecast.....

Dan
cath41
13 years ago
My containerized fig trees are exposed to quite cold temperatures because we take them out once and leave them out and because I get them out while the leaves are still very small this is early, April 1-15. This is in the hope that they are still dormant and that it is easier on them. It then takes them a long time to leaf out. This year I noticed that the Peter's Honey, which does require more heat than most to ripen, leafed out more quickly than the Violette de Bordeaux and seemed less affected by the cold. Is Peter's Honey more resistant to cold than Violette de Bordeaux?
Cath

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