Minnesota Apples Survive Cold Temperatures

Apple growers dodged a bullet, got lucky, caught a break, however you want to phrase it, but the really cold temperatures earlier this week did not damage the apple blossoms. When I got to the studio a little before 4:30 my computer said the temperature was 27 degrees. I think the readings are taken from the Faribault airport. My cell phone said the temperature was 28 degrees.

A frost would not have damaged the apple trees, but if it would have killed the apple blossoms the trees would not produced any apples this year. David Bedford PhD. who is an apple breeder at the University of Minnesota Landscape Arboretum told me he was not aware of any significant damage from the low temperatures. He said he has seen apple blossoms survive temperatures of 28 degrees. Then another time you may see damage at temperatures just above freezing.

There are many factors in play that affect at what temperature the apple blossoms will be destroyed by a frost. However, I have talked to a couple agronomists and there was some minor damage to soybeans that had emerged and very little if any damage to corn that was just emerged. I did hear that alfalfa got hit pretty hard. By late morning after the frost the plants were looking pretty wilted. That was hard to understand because one would think alfalfa is a lot tougher than those flowers on an apple blossom?

But, lets not complain that this years apple crop was not damaged. It has happened before, in fact it was just a few years ago our apple crop was hit pretty hard by a frost!