Many people, including me, were surprised to look out the window Monday morning and see the ground and trees white with snow. A heck of a way to start the week! Although it looked frightening to see trees, buds and flowers covered in snow, luckily temperatures did not drop too low. In general, lows were around 25F in northern areas of the state, and 30-33 in central and southern areas. Of course, the amount of crop damage depends not only on the temperature, but the stage of crop development. In northern areas of the state, apples are at early tight cluster and peaches at pink. Here in Lafayette peaches are in pink and apples at tight cluster and in southern areas peaches are pink to petal fall (depending on variety) and apples between pink and full bloom. So in northern areas of the state, minimum temperatures were lower but crop development was not very advanced and so less cold sensitive. The opposite was true in southern areas – more advanced crop development and so more cold sensitive, but higher minimum temperatures. The bottom line is that I wouldn’t expect to see any significant damage from the low temperatures over Easter. A general guide to minimum temperatures expected to cause damage at different stages of crop development shown in the table.
Apple flowers at the Purdue Meigs farm after snowfall on Monday April 18, 2022. Temperatures were not cold enough to cause significant damage.
Peach flowers at the Purdue Meigs farm after snowfall on Monday April 18, 2022. Temperatures were not cold enough to cause significant damage.