The Big Freeze of 2023
Posted by Mike Biltonen
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The Big Freeze of 2023 May 23, 2023 05:12PM | Registered: 10 years ago Posts: 286 |
As everyone is already - and sometimes painfully - aware, the broader northeast got hit hard by a deep freeze on morning of May 19. Temperatures were pretty steadily in the mid to upper 20s throughout the region with heavy frost. It was clear, lengthy cold, low humidity, and windy in some spots. I had 23F at my house for a low, but I don't grow fruit there - but it wasn't much warmer in higher surrounding areas where fruit is grown.
I am conducting a survey from anyone that is willing to contribute information whether data or not about the freeze and how it affected them. Personally and professionally, I am intrigued by several things we are seeing from this freeze.
1. apple varieties that had set fruit got hit harder than those that were still in bloom or pink.
2. location of damage within trees and within clusters
3. native tree specifies varied in how hard they were hit. E.g., sumac, chestnut, oak, walnut, and japanese knotweed (among others) were damaged extensively in my area. While many other like hawthorn, hazelnut, black currant and elderberry were not. All of the above were in my backyard, but also showed the same similarities throughout the Finger Lakes.
Native flowers plants and lower growing herbs were not affected at all (for the most part), but were located where it was coldest and the frost was heaviest.
Why did some plants and trees get hurt worse than others, and some not at all?
Were there site location differences with respect to elevation, aspect, slope?
Were there differences in how the freeze event manifested itself in specific locations? Duration, rapidity, wind, etc.
Were there differences between crops or even more important varieties in how they were affected?
Were there area in the northeast that didn't experience any damage at all?
I have reports of damage from NY to Vermont to Maine to eastern Massachusetts for a number of different crops, all consistently pretty much 'not good'. But it wasn't worse in the Catskills vs the Finger Lakes vs the upper Hudson Valley., that's for sure. You have to go south into NJ to get away from any impacts.
In addition to our fruit crops, I'd really like to hear what people are also seeing with the native/wild plant and tree species.
In fact, anything that anyone would like to contribute would be great. I am putting together a short slide presentation of what I am seeing. I will open this up to the public in a few weeks once it is done.
If you are willing to contribute, but want to keep any contributions or comments anonymous, just PM and I'll get back to you straight away.
I have a feeling that these events will be happening more often than not in the coming years as climate change becomes less certain and effects more pronounced. That last bit, however, is not news to fruit growers.
Mike Biltonen, Know Your Roots
Zone 5b in New York
I am conducting a survey from anyone that is willing to contribute information whether data or not about the freeze and how it affected them. Personally and professionally, I am intrigued by several things we are seeing from this freeze.
1. apple varieties that had set fruit got hit harder than those that were still in bloom or pink.
2. location of damage within trees and within clusters
3. native tree specifies varied in how hard they were hit. E.g., sumac, chestnut, oak, walnut, and japanese knotweed (among others) were damaged extensively in my area. While many other like hawthorn, hazelnut, black currant and elderberry were not. All of the above were in my backyard, but also showed the same similarities throughout the Finger Lakes.
Native flowers plants and lower growing herbs were not affected at all (for the most part), but were located where it was coldest and the frost was heaviest.
Why did some plants and trees get hurt worse than others, and some not at all?
Were there site location differences with respect to elevation, aspect, slope?
Were there differences in how the freeze event manifested itself in specific locations? Duration, rapidity, wind, etc.
Were there differences between crops or even more important varieties in how they were affected?
Were there area in the northeast that didn't experience any damage at all?
I have reports of damage from NY to Vermont to Maine to eastern Massachusetts for a number of different crops, all consistently pretty much 'not good'. But it wasn't worse in the Catskills vs the Finger Lakes vs the upper Hudson Valley., that's for sure. You have to go south into NJ to get away from any impacts.
In addition to our fruit crops, I'd really like to hear what people are also seeing with the native/wild plant and tree species.
In fact, anything that anyone would like to contribute would be great. I am putting together a short slide presentation of what I am seeing. I will open this up to the public in a few weeks once it is done.
If you are willing to contribute, but want to keep any contributions or comments anonymous, just PM and I'll get back to you straight away.
I have a feeling that these events will be happening more often than not in the coming years as climate change becomes less certain and effects more pronounced. That last bit, however, is not news to fruit growers.
Mike Biltonen, Know Your Roots
Zone 5b in New York
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Re: The Big Freeze of 2023 May 31, 2023 03:07PM | Registered: 4 years ago Posts: 178 |
Wow, I'm really surprised that no one has replied to this thread. Hopefully that means that a lot less HON growers were affected than initially expected, or maybe everyone is still in assessment mode. I'll be really interested to hear more about y'all's late freeze, since it was obviously so different from the events that affected us this spring. You mentioned that one trend from the Northeast freeze seemed to be that formed fruitlets were hardest hit. In our case, it was precisely the opposite: we have a handful of varieties that set an average to above average crop this year, and without exception, they were our very earliest bloomers, Hewes Crab, Redfield, Burfords Redflesh, and an unknown variety we call Baba Yaga. These varieties are located all over the orchard, so not in a locational cluster that might have enjoyed slightly warmer or otherwise outlier conditions.
Most of our other varieties in the orchard set zero fruit or just a smattering. Compounding our events was overall poor return bloom following a zero crop year, then a bumper crop last year. Some of our varieties appear to have been pushed to biennial bearing now, though interestingly, not some of the ones we would have most expected to. We had an ideal winter that, while on the mild side, accumulated a ton of chill hours around late December, when temperatures plummeted for the better part of a week. We did not experience our usual January/early February thaw, when temperatures can soar to the 70s or 80s for a week or so and we get nervous. But it warmed up during the first week of March, pushing everything to wake up in a hurry. Overall, our trees broke dormancy about two and a half weeks earlier than our previous earliest seasons. That timing trend has stayed consistent across the board in subsequent months: bloom was about two and a half weeks early, cessation of fireblight pressure was about two and a half weeks early, etc. (Speaking of fireblight, this strange year allowed for some interesting observations, and I hope, valuable conclusions regarding our disease cycle, need to remember to write that up on this forum.) Our first flowers opened in the second week of March.
Around that time, our region experienced three back-to-back freeze events. Lows were forecast to low twenties for those three nights, and to stay below freezing for four plus hours each of those nights, so we breathed a sigh of relief when our orchard only experienced nights of 27, 22, and 29 respectively, although the orchard was below freezing for much of those first two nights. We were dissecting buds like crazy in the week after that spell, and were pleasantly shocked to see almost zero damage, didn't understand how that was possible. We were feeling incredibly lucky. But in the weeks following, which were alternately cool and warm, with no more freeze events, we noticed dwindling fruitset, even in trees that had had good return bloom. We didn't feel like pollinators were particularly adversely affected by anything during that time, and have concluded that poor bud quality coupled with cumulative cold damage must have been the culprit (a week prior to the three-day freeze stretch mentioned above, we experienced another three-day cold stretch, when lows were 28, 27, and 31, respectively).
Interestingly, we noted during that earlier cold stretch that the earliest varieties (which would go on to have great fruitset), were at pink, with some bloom starting, and we also noted that following the hasty break from dormancy in the preceding weeks, the cold weather seemed to have "arrested flower stage development" and slowed everything way the hell down. If this earlier cold stretch contributed in any way to cumulative cold damage in our orchard, it seems unusual that the most vulnerable buds were not adversely affected.
You asked about native plants affected by the freeze up north -- I remember noticing surprisingly little damage in our woodlines, although our handful of native pear trees did not set fruit (at least one had experienced a bumper crop the previous year, however, and had notably poor return bloom). Speaking of pears, which actually began blooming right at the end of February, again, very early for us, some of our varieties have a good (not great, but we're used to too-heavy crops in our pears, so a lighter fruitset is actually ideal and nice to see) crop this year. Do what?! No peaches, no plums. I'll hear more from conventional growers in our region when I attend a get-together in a week or so. Last we heard from the middle of March, most people in southwest VA came out of our bad freeze event feeling like we did, inexplicably lucky and apparently with not too much damage in their apples.
Kordick Family Farm
Westfield, NC
Zone 7a
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/31/2023 03:36PM by Brittany Kordick.
Most of our other varieties in the orchard set zero fruit or just a smattering. Compounding our events was overall poor return bloom following a zero crop year, then a bumper crop last year. Some of our varieties appear to have been pushed to biennial bearing now, though interestingly, not some of the ones we would have most expected to. We had an ideal winter that, while on the mild side, accumulated a ton of chill hours around late December, when temperatures plummeted for the better part of a week. We did not experience our usual January/early February thaw, when temperatures can soar to the 70s or 80s for a week or so and we get nervous. But it warmed up during the first week of March, pushing everything to wake up in a hurry. Overall, our trees broke dormancy about two and a half weeks earlier than our previous earliest seasons. That timing trend has stayed consistent across the board in subsequent months: bloom was about two and a half weeks early, cessation of fireblight pressure was about two and a half weeks early, etc. (Speaking of fireblight, this strange year allowed for some interesting observations, and I hope, valuable conclusions regarding our disease cycle, need to remember to write that up on this forum.) Our first flowers opened in the second week of March.
Around that time, our region experienced three back-to-back freeze events. Lows were forecast to low twenties for those three nights, and to stay below freezing for four plus hours each of those nights, so we breathed a sigh of relief when our orchard only experienced nights of 27, 22, and 29 respectively, although the orchard was below freezing for much of those first two nights. We were dissecting buds like crazy in the week after that spell, and were pleasantly shocked to see almost zero damage, didn't understand how that was possible. We were feeling incredibly lucky. But in the weeks following, which were alternately cool and warm, with no more freeze events, we noticed dwindling fruitset, even in trees that had had good return bloom. We didn't feel like pollinators were particularly adversely affected by anything during that time, and have concluded that poor bud quality coupled with cumulative cold damage must have been the culprit (a week prior to the three-day freeze stretch mentioned above, we experienced another three-day cold stretch, when lows were 28, 27, and 31, respectively).
Interestingly, we noted during that earlier cold stretch that the earliest varieties (which would go on to have great fruitset), were at pink, with some bloom starting, and we also noted that following the hasty break from dormancy in the preceding weeks, the cold weather seemed to have "arrested flower stage development" and slowed everything way the hell down. If this earlier cold stretch contributed in any way to cumulative cold damage in our orchard, it seems unusual that the most vulnerable buds were not adversely affected.
You asked about native plants affected by the freeze up north -- I remember noticing surprisingly little damage in our woodlines, although our handful of native pear trees did not set fruit (at least one had experienced a bumper crop the previous year, however, and had notably poor return bloom). Speaking of pears, which actually began blooming right at the end of February, again, very early for us, some of our varieties have a good (not great, but we're used to too-heavy crops in our pears, so a lighter fruitset is actually ideal and nice to see) crop this year. Do what?! No peaches, no plums. I'll hear more from conventional growers in our region when I attend a get-together in a week or so. Last we heard from the middle of March, most people in southwest VA came out of our bad freeze event feeling like we did, inexplicably lucky and apparently with not too much damage in their apples.
Kordick Family Farm
Westfield, NC
Zone 7a
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/31/2023 03:36PM by Brittany Kordick.
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Re: The Big Freeze of 2023 May 31, 2023 03:45PM | Registered: 10 years ago Posts: 286 |
I'll just chime in real quick by saying that:
- stone fruit is toast
- blueberries got hit hard
- strawberries that were covered seemed to do well.
- developing fruitlets were damaged most esp on dessert varieties
- late blooming cider apples appear to be ok.
- walnuts, chestnuts, sumac, oak, maple, knotweed etc heavily damaged, but not autumn olive, hazelnuts, most ground herbs, hawthorn, etc. amongst others
- The damage is widespread from western NY along Lake Ontario, to the FLX, Catskills, Hudson Valley and into New England with no areas being spared (though some did better than others).
- my estimate is that site and variety will determine who has a crop and who doesn't. It ranges from 100% loss in the most vulnerable sites to probably 50% in the better areas.
- Grapes as we know were heavily damaged but will recover with secondary shoots
- I did notice some foliage damage on apples, but not enough to be too worried about.
I need another week for a full assessment, but we went from a stellar year to a pretty dismal one in just a few hours. And I suspect we were just a few degrees and/or a few hours from a complete disaster.
Mike Biltonen, Know Your Roots
Zone 5b in New York
- stone fruit is toast
- blueberries got hit hard
- strawberries that were covered seemed to do well.
- developing fruitlets were damaged most esp on dessert varieties
- late blooming cider apples appear to be ok.
- walnuts, chestnuts, sumac, oak, maple, knotweed etc heavily damaged, but not autumn olive, hazelnuts, most ground herbs, hawthorn, etc. amongst others
- The damage is widespread from western NY along Lake Ontario, to the FLX, Catskills, Hudson Valley and into New England with no areas being spared (though some did better than others).
- my estimate is that site and variety will determine who has a crop and who doesn't. It ranges from 100% loss in the most vulnerable sites to probably 50% in the better areas.
- Grapes as we know were heavily damaged but will recover with secondary shoots
- I did notice some foliage damage on apples, but not enough to be too worried about.
I need another week for a full assessment, but we went from a stellar year to a pretty dismal one in just a few hours. And I suspect we were just a few degrees and/or a few hours from a complete disaster.
Mike Biltonen, Know Your Roots
Zone 5b in New York
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Re: The Big Freeze of 2023 May 31, 2023 03:49PM | Registered: 4 years ago Posts: 178 |
Glad you mentioned strawberries -- I forgot I could at least include those in our assessment, as well. We have a bumper crop, and it just so happens that we grow them under our apple trees, so they are in the same relative microclimate the apples. I did not note the bloom time, but we are just coming off peak harvest (they are a "June bearing" variety). Would have been warmer closer to the ground, but still, would have expected to see some potential damage . . .
Kordick Family Farm
Westfield, NC
Zone 7a
Kordick Family Farm
Westfield, NC
Zone 7a
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Re: The Big Freeze of 2023 May 31, 2023 04:02PM | Registered: 10 years ago Posts: 286 |
Yup. And so one of my theories (and potential management strategies) is to somehow use and perhaps even naturally improve the heat-holding capacity of the ground leading up to a frost or freeze event. How?
- dark composts that are wet (preferably from a thermophilic pile created just for these situations). Wood chips probably won't do much since they do not have any moisture holding capacity to speak of until they are composted.
- irrigation to moisten the ground
- irrigation during the event to release heat
- subsoil or even disc (better yet keyline plow) the ground in the orchard to release "deep heat."
- certain biology coupled with improved respiration to create heat?
But I do believe that closer to the ground like strawberries prevented more damage (and too low-growing herbaceous plants as well). To understand that heat is released during the freeze/thaw process of water, it is possible that that would have been happening at ground level during the early and latter parts of the event creating a microclimate the higher growing plants didn't benefit from. Creating the opportunity for improved "thermals" could move that microclimate up into the canopy.
though like everything else - severity and duration are the key components of an event like the one we saw. If its too cold or for too long, all bets are off.
None of the above has to do with anything we can do to the tree or the aboveground orchard ecosystem via nutrition or biology or irrigation.
Mike Biltonen, Know Your Roots
Zone 5b in New York
- dark composts that are wet (preferably from a thermophilic pile created just for these situations). Wood chips probably won't do much since they do not have any moisture holding capacity to speak of until they are composted.
- irrigation to moisten the ground
- irrigation during the event to release heat
- subsoil or even disc (better yet keyline plow) the ground in the orchard to release "deep heat."
- certain biology coupled with improved respiration to create heat?
But I do believe that closer to the ground like strawberries prevented more damage (and too low-growing herbaceous plants as well). To understand that heat is released during the freeze/thaw process of water, it is possible that that would have been happening at ground level during the early and latter parts of the event creating a microclimate the higher growing plants didn't benefit from. Creating the opportunity for improved "thermals" could move that microclimate up into the canopy.
though like everything else - severity and duration are the key components of an event like the one we saw. If its too cold or for too long, all bets are off.
None of the above has to do with anything we can do to the tree or the aboveground orchard ecosystem via nutrition or biology or irrigation.
Mike Biltonen, Know Your Roots
Zone 5b in New York
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Re: The Big Freeze of 2023 June 01, 2023 12:41AM | Registered: 1 year ago Posts: 13 |
It might not be much use for your nth American level of freeze, however for marginal frosts in spring we use this seaweed based product in Australia to give us a degree or two (C), however any seaweed product will seemingly do. There's a decent amount of research online.
[www.fairdinkumfertilizers.com]
Black Barn Farm
Zone 8b in Victoria, Australia
[www.fairdinkumfertilizers.com]
Black Barn Farm
Zone 8b in Victoria, Australia
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Re: The Big Freeze of 2023 June 01, 2023 02:27AM | Registered: 1 year ago Posts: 16 |
At first look our small orchard in western Connecticut seemed to be fine. Now it seems the later blooming varieties like Zestar and Lodii, which were full of small fruit, took the big hit. I would say fruit drop was about 90% and 50% of the Lodi foliage killed. The bigger the fruit was, the better it fared. Peaches, nectarine, Bartlett and Bosc pear and Asian pear are all still good. I had 28-29 degrees at my house but think the orchard site was colder. The tomatoes and peppers that were planted there (that were covered) got totally zapped! The other varieties we have that made it through fine are Gala, Liberty, Honeycrisp Mac, Cortlandt and Fuji.
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Re: The Big Freeze of 2023 June 01, 2023 04:19AM | Registered: 10 years ago Posts: 286 |
Charlie,
Thanks for this. The name alone sells the product!! Do you know the species of kelp they use in this product and if there is any research or data (observational or otherwise) to support claims? Not that I am doubting it, just wondering. Honestly, I think this is the way to go but it takes time to prepare and is not a "oh shit" strategy that can be implemented at the last moment.
Mike Biltonen, Know Your Roots
Zone 5b in New York
Thanks for this. The name alone sells the product!! Do you know the species of kelp they use in this product and if there is any research or data (observational or otherwise) to support claims? Not that I am doubting it, just wondering. Honestly, I think this is the way to go but it takes time to prepare and is not a "oh shit" strategy that can be implemented at the last moment.
Mike Biltonen, Know Your Roots
Zone 5b in New York
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Re: The Big Freeze of 2023 June 01, 2023 07:25AM | Registered: 1 year ago Posts: 13 |
Yes seaweed is no frost silver bullet but a realatively cheap and beneficial option regardless. I've seen photos of pasture trials sprayed v non-sprayed and protection offered is clear to see. Likewise from my use I can't really comment on the apple trees as I spray them all, but I missed a section of my potatoes last spring and try were the only ones impacted by a late frost. I'm satisfied that it provides some level of protection. There is some research, likely more online too, mostly on grapes.
[pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov]
Black Barn Farm
Zone 8b in Victoria, Australia
[pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov]
Black Barn Farm
Zone 8b in Victoria, Australia
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