Warm Spell Could Cause Injury To Fruit Trees When Cold Temperatures Return

Several days of warm temperatures may cause some trees and vegetation to begin their spring blooming.

Van Buren Agricultural Extension Agent Chris Binkley said this could pose issues once the weather returns to its normal winter temperatures. Binkley said the temperature changes have the greatest effect on Upper Cumberland fruit trees.

“Basically what it does is it hurts your production you just don’t produce as many,” Binkley said. “And sometimes in fruit trees you have a thing called cold injury. That’s where you have the fruit but maybe it doesn’t grow like it should grow.”

Binkley said at this point, there is not much to be done to prevent cold damage or help your trees if they start to bloom–this is simply the nature of Tennessee winters. He said one thing you can try is to cover the tree like you do to protect gardens from frost.

Binkley said it also helps to plan ahead. If you notice a certain side of your house gets more frost than another you can strategically plant to maximize the sun and the temperatures.

“We’ve been seeing a lot of injuries from that really cold spell back around Christmas,” Binkley said. “I’ll use my mom as an example. She’s got some shrubbery in front of her house and it’s brown right now. I think some of it will come back, but I think some of will stay brown because of that cold, cold spell. I think that weather could definitely hurt production, but time will tell as we get closer to spring.”