Bonus Episode: SPARC Orchard Roundup Introductory Episode

This bonus episode is to highlight another fruit podcast focused on horticulture/phenology/physiology topics from Extension professionals and researchers around the country. It's hosted by Don and includes personnel from Cornell, Michigan State, University of Maine, and Washington State. Go follow them on their feed!

For more information, visit https://sparcscri.com/

This work is/was supported by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture - Specialty Crop Research Initiative project "Preparing U.S. Pome Fruit Production for Extreme Temperatures in a Changing Climate" (2024-51181-43289; Accession #1032988)

Host: Don Seifrit

Speakers: Emily Lavely, Mike Basedow, Renae Moran, Lee Kalcsits

Music Credit: “Four Seasons - Spring Mvt1” by John Harrison with the Wichita State University Chamber Players is licensed under a Attribution Share-Alike 3.0 United States License. Courtesy of FreeMusicArchive.org

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Flight Seasonalities of Main Fruit Pests During the Growing Season

Transcript

Why This Feed Has A Crossover

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Hey everyone, Don here. What you're going to listen to here is an episode of the Spark Orchard Roundup Podcast. It's a podcast that I'm working on with extension professionals from around the country for a USDA NIFA grant. This will be hosted on its own feed, the Spark Orchard Roundup Podcast, available wherever you're listening to this podcast right now. I wanted to host this episode on the Dr. Tree Fruit and Dawn channels to get some folks interested, drive some folks over there to take a look at it. The episodes are only once a month, so you these will probably get uploaded here as well. They're very short, or they should be very short, uh, to not detract too much from the usual Dr. Tree Fruit and Dawn upload schedule. But if you're interested, please go over there, give it a follow, give it a listen. Uh everyone works really, really hard on that grant, and they would all super appreciate you tuning in. So hope you like this episode. Thanks so much for listening. See you soon. We are part of the Spark Project, which is a team of scientists who are working to provide actionable solutions to pear and apple growers who are facing difficulties from changing heat and cold conditions, such as frost, winter injury, sunburn, and poor color development. Our group also focuses on providing durable extension materials on heat and cold damage, mitigation and poem fruit. Uh, in this first episode, we're going to be talking about bud stage, flower bud phenology, return bloom, and bud survival for our regions. I'm Don Seafert with Penn State Extension, an extension educator located in southeastern PA, and I'm here with uh Mike Basedow. Say hi, Mike. Hi, everybody. Go ahead and introduce yourself for us.

SPEAKER_01 2:02

Hi, everybody. I'm Mike Basedow. I'm a tree fruit extension associate with Cornell Cooperative Extension, and I'm located in northern New York in the Champlain Valley.

SPEAKER_03 2:11

Lee Kalsitz, say hi, Lee.

SPEAKER_02 2:14

Hey Don. My name is Lee Kalsitz. I am a tree fruit physiologist and professor in the Department of Horticulture and endowed chair of tree fruit physiology and management at the Menachee Tree Fruit Research and Extension Center in Menatchie, Washington.

SPEAKER_03 2:35

Great. Emily Lavely, say hi, Emily.

SPEAKER_04 2:38

Hi, everybody. I'm a tree fruit educator for Michigan State University Extension, and I'm located in West Central Michigan.

SPEAKER_03 2:46

And Renee Moran. Say hi, Renee.

SPEAKER_00 2:48

Hello, everyone. This is Renee Moran with the University of Maine, Tree Fruit Specialist, located at the research station in Monmouth, which is in the southern part of the state.

Pennsylvania Bud Stage And Peach Damage

New York Green Tip Timing

SPEAKER_03 2:59

Awesome. So this is our crew here for today. We should have a pretty quick update. I know for myself here in Pennsylvania, we are not past Silvertip at all when it comes to apples, at least in my region and throughout the northern portion of the state. We are just reaching Green Tip down in south central Pennsylvania, which is the Gettysburg, Biglerville, uh Fruit Research and Extension Center region. For those of you who might be familiar with Pennsylvania, so it is pretty quiet here for us. Now I do have a slight update when it comes to peach bud mortality in that we have about 40 or 50% damage in the central and northern parts of the state, which makes things a little easier for thinning, but uh that's about where we're at. And that's all I've got. So it is a very quick update for Pennsylvania. Um, Mike, you were first on the intro. Do you want to go next?

SPEAKER_01 3:58

Sure, yeah. So looking at New York, you know, obviously we're pretty spread out uh between our different production regions. So we have a a spread in phenology development at this point, too. So I think similar to southern Pennsylvania, our most southerly points in the Hudson Valley are just starting to show some green tissue really today in some orchards on some earlier varieties like Max and Ginger Gold and Gala. But then as you get to Western New York, still pretty solidly at Silvertip, and then up here in the Champlain Valley, we're still dormant. So pretty good spread around the state. And I would say, you know, as much as we can say there's a normal, we usually expect the Hudson Valley to hit green tip around the first of April. So uh we feel like we're just about on track for that. So we're hoping we're we're gonna hit at a pretty normal timing around the region. Talking with some colleagues in Western New York, they're thinking probably early second week of April green tip there. And then I'm hoping we're gonna stick to our usual April 15th tax day green tip up here in the Champlain Valley. So we always get hit with that little bit of a double lambing. I haven't had the chance to look at a lot of bud survival at this point, uh, but I have looked at our overall winter low temperatures that we saw around the state. Uh, we're really looking anywhere from about two degrees right along the lakefront in western New York down to a low of about minus 12 Fahrenheit here in the northern portions of the Champlain Valley. So for apples, I'm not anticipating much by way of bud damage around the state. There could be a little bit of peach damage here and there. Um, but overall, not one of our worst winters that we've had in recent years. And then on the return bloom side, I did have a chance to cut open a couple honeycrisp buds last week. Um, the four blocks that I looked at ranged anywhere from about 70% return bloom down to a low of about 18%. And I would say three of those four blocks were averaging under 30%. So um these particular sites were on some larger rootstocks where we tend to have return bloom issues, and we're also on lighter soil. So I think the fact that we had the more vigorous rootstocks paired with the sandier soils, paired with the drought conditions we had last summer, I think we're we're seeing a little bit of return bloom issues there. Um but obviously only only a couple blocks, so hard to know for the full the full state. That's what I have for now. Awesome.

Washington Bloom Is Running Early

SPEAKER_03 6:36

Thanks for the update. That's really good. And uh the fifth April 15th tax date uh marker is kind of a fun one to uh keep in mind. So good update. Thanks.

SPEAKER_02 6:47

All right, Lee, after you. So right now, cherries are are the furthest ahead of those three crops where we are at first bloom to full bloom in our warmer regions for cherries. And then in our cooler regions, we're closer to bud swell and bud burst in our coolest regions. In Wenatchee, we're just starting to see our first cherry flowers in some of our orchards along the river, and and then further higher elevation sites around Wenatchee and the Wenatchee Valley are are a little bit further behind. For pears, um, in Wenatchee, we are at budburst to green cluster, maybe with a little bit of uh white bud or or petals showing on those pear blooms now in some of our warmest sites around the valley. Um, we're expecting full bloom in pears within the next week to 10 days. Apples will follow shortly behind. So right now they are at somewhere between half inch green to tight cluster around Wenatchee in the lower elevation sites along the along the Columbia River. And then down south in the southern part of Washington state, there are some orchards that are are at the pink to popcorn stage. So bloom is not that far away for those southern regions which have experienced some warmer temperatures. So, with all that that said, we're we're about a week to 10 days ahead of normal. Um, we've had some bursts of of warm temperatures in early March, and then again in the second half of March that move things along pretty quickly. Um, we've also had some cold periods that have kind of put pause on things and slowed things down. So we are we are seven to ten days ahead of normal. And uh in our next update, we'll kind of see where we ended up in terms of bloom.

Michigan Bud Survival And Grower Nerves

SPEAKER_03 9:07

Uh Emily, you want to go next?

SPEAKER_04 9:10

Sure. Yeah, for Michigan, we also have a big spread north to south for our different regions. And we check the the primary fruit region growing areas are along the lake shore. So we're really protected from Lake Michigan, and then we've got some growers too in southeast Michigan. So southwest and southeast, they're seeing some changes in bud development. So a little bit of green tip and some of those early apple varieties, and then some swell and peaches and some buds opening in pears as well. Once you get further north, the there's a pretty big difference between the different regions. So the rest of the regions are dormant still, and we're not seeing movement in buds yet, thankfully. So that's good news. Um for apples, there's really good survival across the state for overwintering buds. And for peaches, we're seeing quite a bit of survival. So looking forward to a good crop for peaches as well as sweet cherries and tart cherries. In my region, for apricots, we are starting to see some bud swell. And a lot of times in Michigan, we'll have apricots in bloom and also covered in snow. So that's always something that's a little touch and go. Um, but they look good so far, and looks like there's good apricot bud survival. For plums, there's a little side green as well, but there's good survival in plums. And so we're just gonna keep checking the weather. We're about on track for normal. We had some warm temperatures in March, and I think that always makes growers nervous. I think they've got 2012 PTSD. And so we're always checking those temperatures just like every other part of the country. But the next few weeks we're looking at some cooler temperatures, so that will keep buds pretty slow moving, and I don't think we're gonna accumulate that many growing degree days.

Maine Honeycrisp Return Bloom Check

SPEAKER_03 11:07

Nice. Good update. Thanks for that. And then last but certainly not least, uh, Renee.

SPEAKER_00 11:15

Um, my observations are based on what I've seen at the research station. Since it's still so early in the season here in Maine, I haven't had a chance to get around the state. But what I have been seeing, one of the first things I check is the status of return bloom and honey crisp. And this year I'm seeing flower buds that actually have flowers. They look like buds, and I've been seeing the clusters develop inside them. And I haven't seen any king bloom death inside them. But we've had a fairly mild, consistently cold winter with a few days where the temperature was dangerously warm. Our uh recorded low temperature at the nearest NOAA station was only minus five Fahrenheit. So our buds are not yet at silver tip, and uh, no sign of bud swell in the apples or the peaches. I've also been checking peach buds throughout the winter, and um we lost a few buds early on, nothing significant. Survival was at about 70 to 80 percent coming into the springtime, but then we had a few nights where the temperatures dipped into the mid-teens and um lost a few buds in that spell. But um, so far bud survival is still above 50 percent in most varieties. And over the next few weeks I'll be doing a much thorough check of all the different peach varieties we have here.

SPEAKER_03 12:50

So that's where we are in Maine. Great, yeah. And then apologies for me being ignorant, but where is the research center in Maine located?

SPEAKER_00 13:00

The one for tree fruits is located in a tiny town called Monmouth. And it's close to the capital, it's in the southern part of the state.

Wrap Up And Next Month

SPEAKER_03 13:09

Okay, cool. Great. That is super helpful for me because I unfortunately have not gotten to visit Maine. It is one of the states I have not yet gotten to visit. So uh that is that is super helpful for my geography brain um and for probably some of the folks listening. So and uh do we have anything else we want to chit-chat about before we maybe call it here? Okay, well, in that case, uh thank you everybody for listening. We will be back in a month with another update, hopefully with more of our our colleagues in tow. Uh, we're gonna drag them on here kicking and screaming if we have to. Uh thank you all for listening so very much. Everybody, let's say goodbye.

SPEAKER_04 13:52

Until next time. Bye.

Subscribe Reminder And Sign Off

SPEAKER_03 13:56

Bye. Bye, everybody. Done again. Just as a reminder, that was the Spark Orchard Roundup podcast. Those episodes were going to be hosted monthly. I will host them on this channel if this gets positive feedback. Thank you all so much for listening. I hope you really enjoyed it. It's really fun to work with those folks. So please, if you can get the chance, go over and subscribe to the Spark Orchard Roundup Podcast wherever you are listening to your podcasts. Thanks, folks. Have a good one.