Reduced Fruit Set Due to Spring Freezing Temperatures

Q. Did you see a reduced fruit set in plums, pluots, and pluerries this year or if it was just mine? I have 3- to 5-year-old trees and this year I just did not see many flowers at all. Not so much lack of pollination, but a lack of flowers. I fertilize with compost and try to keep an eye on how much growth I get each year. I want “fruit production”, not “wood production”.

Lightly squeezing the base of a flower AFTER the petals drop will tell you if there is a fruit present or not. The light squeeze will feel a small BB-sized fruit beginning to develop. Doing it this early tells you if the freeze killed the ovary before the fruit formed.

A. I look at fruit production from now forward to judge how much thinning (or none) should be started in about one or two weeks. Fruit removed should be about the size of your thumbnail. Sometimes late freezing weather removes fruit for me. Right now, early flowering peaches have fruit about the size of a large pea. A reduced number of flowers, however, usually means poor pruning practices. It’s best to be observant!

Youtube if fruit was killed by a late spring freeze.

            Fruit production varies where you live in the valley and in different microclimates. Some places in the valley (and landscapes) are warmer than other places. At The Orchard at Ahern, we have about 70 varieties of fruit trees producing fruit from late May through December. Our 25 – 30 varieties of peaches finish producing fruit toward the end of July and into the early parts of August. There are varieties that produce peaches in September or October but for me it’s no longer “peach season”. September through December is “apple or pear season”.

            The same holds true for apricots, apples, pears, plums but not citrus. Generally, early flowering fruit trees produce the earliest crops of fruit. These early flowering varieties are also the varieties most likely not to produce fruit because of late spring freezes. If you want to be sure to get early production of fruit, live where it’s less likely to freeze!

            About mid-March I observe the fruit remaining on earliest flowering varieties of peach, plum/pluot, and apricot as indicators for this year’s harvest. Right now, the earliest flowering peaches have fruit that are the size of a large pea. They also have dried up flowers and fruit dropping from the tree because of late spring freezing weather causing them to die.