Cool Weather and Fruit Trees
I’m writing this on Dec. 29 and we still haven’t seen a hard freeze in Fayette County. This might spell trouble for the fruit tree harvest next year.
According to the Old Farmer’s Almanac, the average first frost date for La Grange was a month and a half ago, on Nov. 17. The cold front that came through the week before Christmas brought a very light frost at my place one morning. It burned a few leaves on some of my more tender plants, but it didn’t kill anything.
We even had to mow our yard this week. I can’t ever remember mowing the week after Christmas. On the flip side, I don’t mind that I’m still picking peppers and eggplants.
But what will this mean for fruit trees, many of which require a certain number of chill hours before they will set fruit?
In general, figs require the lowest number of chill hours, so they should set a good crop next year. Apples, peaches, pears, and plums require more chill hours. Ideally, those chill hours should be during damp, cloudy weather between 32 and 45 degrees. We haven’t felt much of that.
Fruit trees that don’t get enough chill hours will leaf out slowly in the spring. That leads to poor budding and underdeveloped fruit, if any fruit appears at all. Growers can mitigate this problem by planting different varieties of fruit.
According to Texas A&M University, Fayette County normally gets about 450 to 750 chill hours during the winter. Peach varieties such as ‘Texstar,’ ‘Flordaking,’ and ‘Gala’ usually produce well here, but they might not next year due to the unusually warm weather.
Peach growers can hedge their bets by planting some varieties typically grown farther south, such as ‘FlordaGrande’ which only needs 100 chill hours.
Persimmons, pomegranates and loquats don’t require many chill hours and grow quite well here.
Anyone thinking about planting fruit trees should do lots of research on varieties and chill requirements before spending a bunch of money on trees. I made this mistake before and now I have a pear tree that never makes pears.
Texas A&M University provides a ton of information about chill requirements online at https://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/extension/peach/peach.html.