A Breath of Spring!
What a great last week! Temperatures have been mild, snow has been fading gradually away, and the promise of full crops of peaches and blueberries has me smiling. Of course, there is a lot of winter ahead, but one can dream, right?
I have been out pruning with blueberry and apple growers almost daily over the past 2 weeks. How are things looking? Well, I have not seen any obvious winter damage. Flower buds on both apple and blueberry look great, and other than the usual tip burn on blueberry canes that were still growing vigorously when the first hard frost hit last fall, there is no sign of wood damage either. One disquieting thing I have noted is that there are a lot of retained petioles on a few apple trees.
- Retained petioles on a Marshall McIntosh shoot are often the first clue that winter damage may have occurred. Photo: W. Lord
Petioles are the leaf stems and they typically drop as part of the leaves in late autumn. When a lot of petioles remain, especially near the tips of shoots that grew really well the prior summer, it is sometimes a symptom of low level winter damage. Usually these retained petioles are accompanied by some irregularly shaped, purplish discoloration in the bark but I am seeing none of that this year. Has there been damage? I don’t think so, but I will be watching closely as trees start to grow and bloom come spring.
Bill Lord, March 9, MMX
Posted: March 9th, 2010 under Fruit Growers Journal.