We have spent a great part of January continuing to prune apple trees. Whenever the weather cooperates we don our winter apparel and out we go. At this point we feel that we have completed about two thirds (2/3) of the pruning work. The heavy loads of apples on the trees last season caused the trees to suffer heavy limb breakage. Thus, there is lots to prune and trim to get the trees back in shape in anticipation for this year’s production. The good aspect to all of this is that there is ample apple wood available for those who like to smoke meat.
The peach orchard will be the next challenge for us. It needs quite a lot of attention to pruning as well. The peach trees are nearing the end of their life span and every year we lose five or ten trees. We have made several efforts to replace the trees lost but not much success at doing this. Old orchards suffer replant disease and we face that problem. We continue to explore alternative planting areas and methods.
We have had several nights of single digit temperatures and one night where temperatures dropped below the zero reading. Peach trees suffer crop losses when temperatures dip below the zero degree reading. A professor at Purdue University’s School of Horticulture stated that peach trees can sustain their crop potential until zero degrees. Any thing below zero degrees creates a percentage of crop loss. His findings indicate for every degree below zero, ten (10%) percent of the peach crop is lost. Thus, ten degrees below zero could potentially wipe out an entire peach crop. We have found these statements to be factual. We think so far, so good for the peaches this year.
The month of February usually brings less cloud cover, brighter days as well as more daylight hours. Looking forward to having warmer temperatures and more daylight. Extended hours of daylight make brush cleanup easier for the grandchildren to tackle after their classes at school or on the weekends. They’re not usually overly excited about the task but they “step up to the plate” and try their best.