Fruits and Nuts: Papaya-Valencia-Fig Freeze Pictures , 0 by Chiefengineer

Chiefengineer wrote:
I'm posting these pictures for those interested
in what freeze damage can look like.

A couple weeks ago we had an unusual freeze.
It was 70-80F for weeks...then all of a sudden
a 14 hour freeze where it dipped to 25F. It is
70's again now, but the aftermath isn't pretty.

My papayas (upper left) had produced big fruits for years, are
planted next to warming brick, and one had overhead
coverage from an eve. You can see fruit on one.
In years past they got burned a little...now they look
like nuclear war hit, and it is still our warmest
winter month.

I had Xmas lights on in my fruit orchard, including
the Valencia orange (upper right) in this pic. It had about a
thousand golf ball sized green fruits on it that
froze, then molded, then got picked off to
prevent mold going to the leaves.

I had the oldest fig in these parts die years
ago from cotton root rot. Before that it had
replanted itself from branches 20 feet from the
original trunk (lower middle). The new trees had produced several
crops of nice figs for years. You can see despite
shelter from a cedar tree they totally bit the dust.



These plants are helpless when it is 80F during the day
then freezes at night...a relatively new phenomena. I
have a huge hackberry tree that lost all of its green leaves
in two days following this...never got brown. Same
with some peaches that were blossoming.