Blog 4-11-25
Freeze Damage Update
After the intense storms and major flooding this past week, it seems spring continues to give everything it's got to our growers. On Monday and Tuesday night, many of us experienced hard freezes which can majorly affect our fruit crops in bloom. At our research farms in Lexington, we assessed the damage to our crop from Monday’s freeze and things were looking worse for wear, but there’s still hope for our fruit crops!
At the North Farm, temperatures dropped to 27 Fahrenheit for an hour on Monday and 29 F for upwards of four hours with a half hour dip to 28 F in the middle on Tuesday (Figure 1). At the South Farm, temperatures on Monday dropped to 28 F for two hours but stayed between 30 and 32 F much of the night and fluctuated between 31 and 34 F on Tuesday night (Figure 2).
We assessed damage to our apples by sampling 30 total flowers in bloom from Redfield, Roxberry Russet, Brushy Mountain, Golden Russet, and Grimes Golden. Across the orchard, blooms were collected at head height. Each flower was cut open to view damage to the pistil and ovules. Of all the samples collected, 60% sustained damage from the freeze (Figure 3).
Despite a 60% crop loss, a good crop set is still possible! Apple flowers come in clusters of 5-6 flowers, meaning if you lose the king flower or even a secondary flower here or there, you haven’t lost your crop completely. It’ll be vital for growers to focus on good pollination of their crops to ensure fruit set. Growers should also make deliberate decisions about thinning as it may not be necessary due to the frost and pruning practices.
Thirty blueberry flowers in full bloom were also sampled at our farm. Like the apples, each flower was cut open to view the pistil and ovules and we can happily say we didn’t find any damage in our blueberries (Figure 4).
Though a freeze during bloom may not be ideal, growers should keep their chins up with warmer weather soon to come! If commercial growers have any questions about the next steps after frost damage please reach out to Brent Arnoldussen, Elayna Stirn, or contact us through our social medias.
4/11/25
