Flowering bare root fruit trees

[Martin B]

We bought some bare root fruit trees from Aldi two weeks ago and they looked very stick like as you would expect. We had the intention to leave them in the shed and plant them after our holiday. We have been on holiday for a week and we came back to 3 trees covered in green leaves and even blossom!

Can I still plant them out as planned or will they need some frost protection be needed? I didn't expect them to break dormancy so quickly and even before I planted them out..

Any help or advice would be great

Thanks,

Martin

[FB.]

You're in a bit of a pickle. You've made the trees think that summer is here. But it now makes the trees very vulnerable because:

1.
If you don't plant them, the roots will not be able to supply water to the now-growing leaves - so the leaves will die.

2.
If you put them in a bucket of water, the roots will drown, rot, and become vulnerable to crown and root rot.

3.
If you plant them out, the new growth will probably be killed by the cold weather.

------------

The "least worst" would be to put them into pots of soil and keep them indoors until the freezing weather passes, then plant them outdoors in a few weeks time when the weather should start showing a noticeable warming trend.
Next "least worst" would be to plant them out as soon as possible - tomorrow!

.

[rustylady]

What sort of fruit trees? And your shed must be a lot warmer than mine.

I would go with FB's "least worst" advice above.

[FB.]

What sort of fruit trees? And your shed must be a lot warmer than mine.

It might be that the plants sat in a warm shop for a week or so, which brought them out of dormancy - and perhaps no matter what Martin had done, they would still have leafed-out and blossomed.

That's a problem with bare-root from a shop because of the warmth indoors which tricks the plants into thinking that summer is here.
Bare-root is always best when shipped straight from the nursery while dormant, and planted as soon as possible afterwards.

I should have added to my earlier post that the plants will need to be near a window for a few hours a day or their leaves will not be able to gather light to keep them alive.
I would also remove the blossom buds as soon as possible, since blossom is especially demanding of the tree's reserves, and also requires the leaves to be photosyhthesizing during the bright daylight of spring/summer in order to keep the blossoms alive.

[salome2001]

on a similar note, I have a hybrid berry (boysenberry) in a 3L pot that my lottie neighbour gave me for xmas that I abandoned in the conservatory and it is now in full leaf. At least it's in a pot. It's not a particularly warm conservatory (we don't really use it in winter). Should I plant it out or keep it inside until it gets a little warmer and I can plant it out?

[FB.]

on a similar note, I have a hybrid berry (boysenberry) in a 3L pot that my lottie neighbour gave me for xmas that I abandoned in the conservatory and it is now in full leaf. At least it's in a pot. It's not a particularly warm conservatory (we don't really use it in winter). Should I plant it out or keep it inside until it gets a little warmer and I can plant it out?

Keep it where it is for another month and then plant it out.
Although the conservatory might feel cold, it's still likely to be several degrees warmer than outdoors and there are no blasts of wind-chill. Wind-chill and freezing temperatures might be too much of a shock for the plant.

[DuncanM]

On the subject of planting apple trees and the current temperatures... I have 2 more apple trees to plant, I was planning to do so this weekend, weather forecast has temperatures between 4-6 degrees (at the time of writing), however with a windchill/feels like temperature between -2 and 0. Would the windchill affect the planting, or can I go ahead with the planting given it should be 4-6? The plants are already healed in the rough vicinity of where they will be finally planted.

[FB.]

Windchill isn't a problem if the plant is dormant.
It's the tender young leaves which may be damaged or killed.

Plant leaves - especially young leaves - are very tender. If they freeze they burst easily like a frozen pipe. Woody stems are much more resistant to bursting because they're stronger.
However, if those woody stems are pumping water and nutrients to the growing leaves and a frost arrives (or if they haven't properly hardened-off in autumn when an early but harsh frost arrives) then the stems become more vulnerable to winter-freeze injury too.

But an apple tree in full dormancy, which hasn't been confused by bringing it indoors, should withstand -10'C without any noticeable damage.

[DuncanM]

OK then - that's good news. I'll plant them out this weekend

[Martin B]

Thanks for the advice.

They are now potted up as suggested and I have put a tree frost protector over them. Hopefully there will be some good weather soon and I'll be able to put them out in the ground

[orangepippin]

But an apple tree in full dormancy, which hasn't been confused by bringing it indoors, should withstand -10'C without any noticeable damage.

-10C is approaching the limit for most of the Malling-series apple rootstocks which are used in the UK, particularly on young apple trees. If temperatures fall past that you may find young trees can't survive.

In North America, and continental Europe, temperatures drop much further than we have in the UK, but they still have fruit trees. How? Firstly, they plant in spring, not autumn. Secondly, they often use cold-hardy rootstocks such as the US Geneva-series or the Russian Budagovsky series or hardy seedlings like Antonovka - which are not available in the UK. Thirdly, they get a lot of snow - and good snow coverage prevents the really low air temperatures getting to the roots of the tree.

[FB.]

-10C is approaching the limit for most of the Malling-series apple rootstocks which are used in the UK, particularly on young apple trees. If temperatures fall past that you may find young trees can't survive.

In North America, and continental Europe, temperatures drop much further than we have in the UK, but they still have fruit trees. How? Firstly, they plant in spring, not autumn. Secondly, they often use cold-hardy rootstocks such as the US Geneva-series or the Russian Budagovsky series or hardy seedlings like Antonovka - which are not available in the UK. Thirdly, they get a lot of snow - and good snow coverage prevents the really low air temperatures getting to the roots of the tree.

As you mention; a number of factors affect the severity of the damage to woody stems and roots.

Firstly, the ground tends to warm or cool more slowly than the air, so roots tend to suffer less shock than the shoots, which, at this time of year in the UK might see 15'C, calm and sunny one day, then -5'C and a bitterly cold windchill the next. The soil temperature, on the other hand, only usually moves a few degrees in one day at a depth of several inches where the main "scaffold" roots tend to be.

Also how deep the dormancy: a hard frost in early autumn gives the plants less time to shut down and harden-off for winter. Fruit trees become more resistant to cold damage as mid-winter approaches because they have had time to harden off and become fully dormant.

Then there's snow cover - and compost mulches - which buffer the soil temperature.

Some rootstocks are better able to withstand deep freezes than others. M26 and MM111 are among the best of the Malling and Malling-Merton rootstocks. The very dwarf M27 and M9 have such small root systems that it is easy for all the roots to be killed. Medium and high vigour rootstocks have deeper roots and may also have more vigour to repair the damage.

I regard M25 as also rather lacking in cold-hardiness. It can be very late to shed leaves in autumn, and also seems to have a slower start in cool springs than (say) MM111 (which is closest in vigour), and M25 tends to grow slower than would be expected in cooler seasons.
On the other hand, in cool seasons (such as 2012) MM111 often shuts down and hardens-off early for winter (sometimes beginning to yellow leaves in August!).

Just a tentative observation: M25 did not like the cool, dull, damp season of 2012. Growth was rather disappointing.
M26, MM106 and M116 pleasantly surprised me (not that I like MM106 due to its poor disease resistance).
M111 just carried on with business as usual.

I would say that the M116 trees coped best with the cool, dull growing conditions. The M25 coped worst. Quite possibly it is to do with how well the roots can metabolise in cold soil - in a similar way to certain apple varieties often do not grow well in the cooler UK climate.

[salome2001]

thanks FB.. another month or so of benign neglect it is then... while I work out where to put it!!!
(should I train it up a post and wire like a blackberry?)