by Dwight Bradley

 

The winter of 1995 96 turned out to be a “test winter” for us in Peters Creek. It wasn’t particularly cold (lowest was not quite -30°F), but the problem was that there was no snow. The first significant snowfall wasn’t until January, by which time we had already had been through a three-week stretch when it never got above 0°F. Reportly, the-ground was frozen to as deep as 14 feet in parts of Anchorage; water mains were bursting every day.

 

When spring finally came, at first it seemed that our 50 apple trees had gotten through with only moderate damage. A few trees were killed outright and never showed any sign of life: for example, Tetovski and Liveland Raspberry, which were both laden with fruit spurs arid were ready to fruit heavily for the first time. Most of the doomed trees started to leaf out and bloom, but then suddenly wilted and died in early to mid-June. Strangely enough, a Yellow Transparent that ended up dying yielded several sticks of healthy, viable scionwood in March. Clearly it was the roots that were killed and not the top.

 

Some trees were set back quite severely but didn’t die. For example, a 1992 Rescue on Antonovka set out about 100 blossoms, but the leaves were half normal size and the tree didn’t grow a bit. The tree set a few fruits but these soon dropped. Things turned around in early August, when a new- set of larger leaves grew, and the tree seemed to be its old vigorous self again. Strangely enough, it actually bloomed again around mid-August, (The same happened to a Norland that also had gotten off to a slow start).

 

The winter before (94-95) was also a bad one for our apple trees, but the problem then was sunscald. Lots of snow fell in the early fall of 1994, before the ground had even frozen. Then, in March 1995, there was about a week of thaw when some trees began to draw sap from the barely-frozen ground. This was followed by a short spell down around 0°F, which killed the cambium layer in many trees.

 

Needless to say, the last two winters have been very discouraging, but we’re getting the hint and replacing whatever dies with the more reliable varieties, such as Parkland and Norland.

 

The pie diagrams below summarize the performances of Antonovka and Ranetka rootstock. Ranetka did significantly better than Antonovka in 95-96, but slightly worse in 94-95. Ranetka’s poor showing in 94-95 is probably due to its earliness in breaking dormancy. This is something I’ve observed for several years in trees that winter over in my garage, which stays at 35-40°F. Varieties on Ranetka are always the first to begin to leaf out, well before Borowinka.

 

The table on the next page lists varieties that died, lived but suffered some damage, or came through without injury. Trees that were “Terminated” were still alive when replaced in the orchard, but had no hope of ever thriving again.

 

 

 

WINTER INJURY IN PETERS CREEK, 1994-95 and 1995-96

 

Variety (*means tree has fruited)	Year propagated	Rootstock	94-95 response	95-96 response
Almata	91	Antonovka	damage	dead
Antonovka tree	92	Antonovka	damage	dead
Amonovka shoot	95	Antonovka	NA	dead
Antonovka shoot	95	Antonovka	NA	dead
Beacon	91	Antonovka	dead	NA
Breaky	93	Antonovka	damage	terminated
Burgundy	92	Antonovka	dead	NA
Carroll	91	Antonovka	okay	dead
Centennial	93	Ranetka	NA	dead
Chinese Golden Early*	91	Antonovka	damage	dead
Chinese Golden Early*	91	Antonovka	damage	dead
Crimson Beauty*	91	Antonovka	damage	okay
Duchess	91	Ranetka	dead	NA
Dudley*	91	Antonovka	dead	NA
Early Cortland	92	Antonovka	damage	okay
Early Joe	92	Ranetka	dead	NA
Fifteenth St. Mystery	93	Ranetka	damage	okay
Geneva Early	91	Ranetka	dead	NA
Geneva Early	94	Ranetka	dead	NA
Ginger Gold	94	Ranetka	dead	NA
Heyer 20*	91	Ranetka	okay	okay
Iowa Beauty	91	Antonovka	dead	NA
July,Red*	93	Ranetka	dead	NA
Lodi	92	Antonovka	damage	dead
Mantel	90	Antonovka	damage	terminated
Melba*	91	Antonovka	dead	NA
Minnesota 1734*	87	Amonovka	okay	dead
Morden 359*	91	Antonovka	okay	damage
Norland*	92	Antonovka	okay	damage
Norland*	93	Antonovka?	okay	damage
Northern Lights	92	Antonovka	dead	NA
Oriole*	87	Antonovka	damage	dead
Oriole	94	Borowinka	NA	dead
Oriole	94	Ranetka	NA	dead
Oriole	94	Ranetka	NA	okay
Quinte	91	Antonovka	damage	terminated
Parkland	90	Antonovka	okay	okay
Parkland	94	Borowinka	NA	okay
Parkland	94	Ranetka	dead	NA
Parkland* (4 trees)	94	Ranetka	NA	okay
Primate*	91	Ranetka	dead	NA
Ranetka shoot	91	Ranetka	NA	dead
Ranetka shoot (2 trees)	95	Ranetka	NA	dead
Red Astrachan	91	Amonovka	dead	NA
Red Astrachan	91	Antonovka	dead	NA
Red June	93	Ranetka	NA	dead
Rescue*	91	Antonovka	okay	damaged
Rosthem 15	93	Antonovka	damage	dead
Rosthem 18*	91	Antonovka	damage	okay
State Fair	87	Antonovka	okay	dead
Tetovsky	91	Antonovka	damage	dead
Unknown crab* (Centennial?)	94	Ranetka	NA	okay
Vista Bella	91	Ranetka	damage	dead
Wealthy*	91	Antonovka	dead	NA
Westland	90	Amonovka	damage	okay
Yeager Sweet	93	Ranetka	damage	dead
Yellow Jay*	89	?	dead	NA
Yellow Jay*	89	?	okay	Okay
Yellow Transparent*	91	Antonovka	damage	dead