Field results of nutrition management on freeze resistance, bacterial canker and powdery mildew in cherries
From the podcast interview with Mike Omeg: John: Mike, you’ve been talking about the returns in very abstract terminology of return on investment, etc. Tell us about results. What has changed with your trees? We started this conversation by mentioning a desire to develop the root systems. What has changed with your root systems? What has changed with tree health? What have you actually observed in the field? Mike: I have some anecdotes and then I have some actual data to share. Let’s start with the anecdotes. In November of 2014, we had one of those once-in-a-lifetime historic freezes. The lowest the temperature had been was 43 degrees. Our trees generally go into dormancy in November, but it had been a very warm fall and the trees were still actively growing. We hadn’t had any acclimation to the cold. Then we had an arctic front come down, and we went from lows in the 40s to below zero in one day, and it stayed below zero. Here at my house, we had -4 degrees Fahrenheit. The leaves on the trees just turned black. Just like a dahlia plant looks after the first frost, the leaves turned black, and they just hung on the trees. Several hundred acres of trees in our area just died. We had blocks where all the buds were frozen on the trees. At that time, I was doing some comparison and analysis between mulch and intensive bionutrient applications and conventional applications for management of the orchard. Read the full article
