UVALDE – Conditions are set for Texas fruit producers to have a bumper year if early blooms can avoid a major freeze before consistent warm weather sets in, said a Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service expert.

Dr. Larry Stein, AgriLife Extension horticulturist, Uvalde, said good chill hours and soil moisture index have fruit trees set up for a good year, but those early blooms could be susceptible to spring freezes.

“It was an awesome chill-hour year,” Stein said. “We have 850-hour varieties with active buds starting to swell, and that is good news.”

The bad news could be a strong, late freeze that could kill exposed blooms, Stein said.

Stein said a light freeze in Central Texas with temperatures dipping to around 27 degrees did not last long enough to cause serious damage.

“The challenge will be avoiding a serious freeze through mid-March,” he said. “Buds are breaking in some areas, and so we will just have to see what the weather does. Growers are on pins and needles and hoping it will be OK.” 

Buds, like these on a peach tree at Philley Peaches in Overton, are breaking early this year due to plenty of chill hours, sun and warmer temperatures. (Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service photo by Adam Russell)

Stein said buds throughout Central Texas are in a variety of stages, from tightly wound buds to blooms. Blooms are most vulnerable to freeze, while tight buds are most cold-hardy.

The wide range of bud stages works to growers’ advantage, Stein said. Typical fruit trees carry 5,000 to 8,000 blooms that eventually turn into fruit. Producers typically thin those blooms via pruning or physically thinning the crop to around 500 blooms to ensure proper fruit size and quality.

“A light freeze works to their advantage and thins the crop naturally,” he said. “So, they’ll just have to wait out the weather to see.”

Growing conditions are otherwise set up for a good year, Stein said.

“The full soil profile is a good thing and means everything will grow like gangbusters,” he said. “The only thing would be too much rain and at the wrong time.”

Standing water can kill a tree in a matter of days, he said. High moisture levels can also lead to viral and fungal diseases.

Growers should also be prepared to spray tree canopies with a copper hydroxide solution for bacterial leaf spot if wet conditions continue, he said. Fungal diseases like blossom blight and scab are also more prevalent under wet conditions.

Stein said growers should also consider spraying trees with dormant oil to kill scale insects that literally suck the life out of trees.

“Scale insects are the No. 1 killers of fruit trees in Texas,” he said. “It should be a preventative maintenance measure every year just prior to bud break. Trees need total coverage of tree bark and crevices with the spray to kill the insects and their eggs.”