Posts Tagged: deciduous tree
Cold Enough for Your Deciduous Fruit Trees?
Advice from the Help Desk of the
UC Master Gardeners of Contra Costa County
Contra Costa County
As explained in the earlier blog, without adequate chill hours and depending upon the fruit tree, blossoming can be erratic and fruit set can be significantly reduced. Our earlier blog provides lots more information on the importance of chill hours for your fruit trees. The previous blog also explains how you may be able to estimate the chill hours in your garden from the UC CIMIS weather stations and possibly even down to your neighborhood using Private Weather Station data available on the web (see the blog comments and the web's GetChill.net).
Most likely as a consequence of the ongoing drought, winter last year (2014-2015) was considered a “warm winter” compared to our “normal” winters. Chill hours were quite reduced for most of the County and many deciduous fruit trees had erratic blossoming and poor fruit set. (Note: the data for the Concord CIMIS station is somewhat counter to this. As of the posting of this blog, we don't have an answer to that and are still looking into the reported data consistency).
So, what about this winter? Is it or will it be cold enough for good fruit production by your deciduous fruit trees? We reviewed the CIMIS data for this winter from November 1st through Saturday, December 26th. (What else would a Master Gardener be doing the day after Christmas?) The table below is the results of that analysis.
Station & |
Chill Hours <45OF |
|||
Nov 1st - |
Average |
Seasonal |
||
2015 |
2014 |
2010-2014 |
2010-2014 |
|
Brentwood #47 |
339 |
82 |
319 |
837 |
Concord #170 |
485 |
725? |
490 |
1102 |
El Cerrito #213 |
186 |
13 |
89 |
191 |
Moraga #178 |
630 |
265 |
443 |
1160 |
Pleasanton #191 |
489 |
164 |
419 |
1030 |
Except for the above-noted inconsistency of the Concord CIMIS station, the data would indicate that half way through the chill hour “period” we are seeing a typical “cold winter” with a good prognosis that if the “norm” holds, we should see adequate chill hours. However, there are many factors at play in that forecast. For example, another warm winter will keep the chill hours down as will clear weather that will also bring warm daytime temperatures but countered with cold night temperatures.
You can also check GetChill.net and possibly see what your nearby PWS chill hours are. Use of the PWS data comes with a caveat though that the data is often not as complete as the UC CIMIS stations.
Are you a gambling gardener? Is it going to be a cold or warm winter? Are we going to get enough chill hours to have a successful fruit set… let alone enough water?
Help Desk of the UC Master Gardeners of Contra Costa County (SIM)
Note: The UC Master Gardeners of Contra Costa's Help Desk is available year-round to answer your gardening questions. Except for a few holidays, we're open every week, Monday through Thursday for walk-ins from 9:00 am to Noon at 75 Santa Barbara Road, 2d Floor, Pleasant Hill, CA 94523. We can also be reached via telephone: (925) 646-6586, email: ccmg@ucanr.edu, or on the web at http://ccmg.ucanr.edu/Ask_Us/ MGCC Blogs can be found at http://ccmg.ucanr.edu/HortCoCo/ You can also subscribe to the Blog (//ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/blogroll.cfm).
/span>/span>/span>Mystery Tree-Learning about an American Classic
My friends recently moved to a beautiful new country home, which sits on an acre of land with a creek. While walking in their yard, they pointed to a large tree about 25-30 feet tall and full of what looked like blackberries hanging from the tree. I’d never seen a tree full of blackberries. I looked expecting to see thorns and vines twisting among the branches but they were actually growing from the tree. My friend explained that the wild turkeys come and jump up to eat the berries, so they didn’t think the berries were poisonous. I took a few pictures and started my search…
It turns out that my friends have several mulberry trees in their yard. I’d often heard of fruitless mulberry trees, but I had never seen one with fruit. I discovered there are 150 different varieties of mulberry trees (Morus spp.) and many, many hybrids. The Red mulberry or American mulberry (M. rubra) is native in the eastern United States. The White mulberry (Morus alba) trees were originally imported from Asia during early colonial times because they are used to raise silk worms.
The mulberry tree is deciduous and often grown near the edge of open woodlands and near fresh water, which described the location on their property perfectly. The fruit is edible and is used for pies and jams because of its sweet and slightly tart flavor. The color of the actual fruit, does not determine the variety. The fruit can be white, pink, red and black but the fruit is really not a berry. It’s an aggregate fruit, which means it’s composed of lots of little berries stuck together, each with its own seed. The fruit is long and shaped similar to a blackberry, but hangs from a short, slender fruit stalk. The fruit is supposed to be delicious however; the color from the fruit is used as dyes so can easily stains things that the juices seeps into. That also including the droppings from birds when eat the berry, so the tree has a bad reputation among suburban homeowners.
After looking at the shape of the leaves, I believe that my friends have the Black mulberry (Morus nigra ) species that is native to southwestern Asia. It’s a beautiful full size tree in their large backyard. It’s in a great location. I think they will be gathering lots of delicious black mulberries for many years to come.
Here we go round the mulberry bush, the mulberry bush, the mulberry bush…here we go around the mulberry bush so early in the morning…
Sources:
http://www.crfg.org/pubs/ff/mulberry.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morus_nigra
http://www.pfaf.org/user/plant.aspx?latinname=Morus+nigra
http://www.ehow.com/how_5637978_make-mulberry-trees-produce-fruit.html
Mulberry fruit. (photos by Esther Blanco)
More fruit and leaves.