{"id":1997,"date":"2026-04-21T18:08:59","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T22:08:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/fruit\/2026\/04\/21\/here-we-go-again-freeze-damage-assessment-in-vermont-orchards\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T18:08:59","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T22:08:59","slug":"here-we-go-again-freeze-damage-assessment-in-vermont-orchards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/fruit\/2026\/04\/21\/here-we-go-again-freeze-damage-assessment-in-vermont-orchards\/","title":{"rendered":"Here we go again- Freeze damage assessment in Vermont orchards"},"content":{"rendered":"

I don\u2019t need to tell anyone that it was cold last night\u2014I am seeing 26\u00b0, 22\u00b0, 20\u00b0F from NEWA stations and hearing reports from growers of even colder temperatures down into the teens. That\u2019s not unheard of for mid-April, but depending on the bud stage of your trees, that\u2019s enough to cause substantial damage to the 2026 crop. At the UVM Hort Farm, buds I checked around 1:00 PM yesterday were at solid Half-Inch Green bud stage, which the chart<\/a> indicates that we would start to see damage at 23\u00b0 and see 90% crop loss at 15\u00b0(our station recorded a low of 24\u00b0). I wasn\u2019t able to get to the farm today, but will be doing a close check of the buds tomorrow.<\/p>\n

Before making any changes to management, it is best to carefully assess the potential damage in your orchard. Sadly, I only need to go back to my May 2023 bulletins to offer a protocol to follow:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Unless you had multiple thermometers in multiple locations and heights in your orchard, you don\u2019t really know the temperatures that any particular tree saw. There has been a lot of extrapolating from neighbor\u2019s stations which can be helpful, but not to the degree of accuracy that would tell you the critical difference between 30\u00b0 and 28\u00b0 (or 25\u00b0 and 22\u00b0).<\/li>\n
  2. Buds don\u2019t read critical temperature charts<\/a>\u2013 there are a number of factors that can affect bud hardiness, including cultivar, age, water or nutrient stress, etc. But we can assume that temperatures at or below 28\u00b0 will start to show some real damage.<\/li>\n
  3. At this time, the most important thing to do is to assess your damage visually. This is really easy to do as damaged buds will show by now. I sent this link<\/a> [on 5\/18\/2023] that will be helpful to review again. Basically, pinch the ovule at the base of the bud with your fingernail or a razor blade so you cut it at the equator. The interior should be completely green with no browning or worse, blackening. This can be seen without intense magnification but growers my age or older ought to have your readers with you. I also looked at buds today with someone who is color blind and realized that that condition makes it had to see the damage, so if you are, have someone else do the assessment.<\/li>\n
  4. Think about your strategy based on your freeze condition. Inland, and assuming your orchard saw 25\u00b0 or colder? Go to your best spots- at the top of the hill, healthiest trees, buds collected head height- if you see extensive damage there, you can assume that the lower spots of the orchard are as bad or worse. In the Champlain Valley, your weather station said 29, 30\u00b0? Go to the low spots and assess, if you don\u2019t see extensive damage then your better-sited trees are probably okay. Do a thorough assessment and write it down, especially of you will be applying for a crop insurance payment. I would start with 50 buds collected methodically and randomly from the canopy for each block and variety. If you have more than 50% damage, look more.<\/li>\n
  5. If you do have extensive damage and you have crop insurance, contact your agent ASAP. Even if you think you don\u2019t have damage, keep an eye out in the coming weeks. Weakened buds can abscise later, or fruit may develop frost rings that make them unsaleable as fresh fruit.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    I\u2019ll end my quoted message there, as the rest included information on how to manage an orchard with little to no crop. I hope things aren\u2019t that bad.<\/p>\n

    Damage may be reported at: https:\/\/go.uvm.edu\/vttreefruitfreezedamage<\/a>. I will use any aggregated reports to help develop management recommendations and to advocate for the industry as appropriate.<\/p>\n

    Good luck out there. And please let me know what things are looking like.<\/p>\n

    Best, Terry<\/p>\n

    The UVM Tree Fruit and Viticulture Program is supported by the University of Vermont Agriculture Experiment Station, UVM Extension, USDA NIFA E-IPM Program, and USDA Risk Management Agency.<\/p>\n

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    I don\u2019t need to tell anyone that it was cold last night\u2014I am seeing 26\u00b0, 22\u00b0, 20\u00b0F from NEWA stations and hearing reports from growers of even colder temperatures down into the teens. That\u2019s not unheard of for mid-April, but depending on the bud stage of your trees, that\u2019s enough to cause substantial damage to … Continue reading Here we go again- Freeze damage assessment in Vermont orchards<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2208,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[],"tags":[1],"class_list":["post-1997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Terence Bradshaw","author_link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/fruit\/author\/tbradsha\/"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4nZlV-wd","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/fruit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/fruit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/fruit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/fruit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2208"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/fruit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/fruit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1997\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/fruit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/fruit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/fruit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}