The weather has been unusually warm to start out this year.\u00a0 I noticed the flower buds on my plum and pear trees starting to swell and show some color in February.\u00a0 Unfortunately, if this warm weather continues, we will end up having a premature bloom on many fruit tree species.\u00a0 In some years, it is common to have a cold snap even in mid-April and will probably end up losing all of our fruit set on plums and pears.\u00a0 This is one of the main reasons why you don\u2019t see any commercial pears, plums, or cherries grown in Georgia.\u00a0 These species are also highly susceptible to diseases such as fire blight (on pears) and brown rot (on plums) when we have the warm, wet spring weather that favors these disease issues. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Our office receives numerous calls each year\nfrom people that want to plant dozens of fruit trees in their backyard. I always try to remind then to buy varieties\nthat are best suited to Georgia\u2019s climate and don\u2019t just buy on impulse from\nlocal garden centers. Often, the\nvarieties that are sold at retail garden centers are the most popular or\nfamiliar varieties, but may not be the best option for north Georgia. Do your homework and shop at local nurseries\nthat specialize in fruit trees recommended for Georgia. Our UGA Extension publications give guidance\non varieties that are more disease tolerant and those that have higher chill\nhour requirements (meaning they will bloom later). For example, there are a number of high chill\nhour varieties of peaches that should be considered if planting in north\nGeorgia. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, the best advice I can give any\nclient is to not go overboard and plant too many \u201cmarginal\u201d fruit tree species\nin north Georgia. You will just end up\ndisappointed. If you have one good year\nout of every four years, you\u2019re doing good. \nDon\u2019t expect to get a bumper crop of pears, peaches, sweet cherries, or plums\nevery year\u2014even with the best varieties for Georgia. It takes a lot of time to prune, train, and\nmaintain these types of fruit trees. I\nwould rather be disappointed with one or two fruit trees that are lost to a\nfrost than a dozen trees. That\u2019s a lot\nof time and work that you won\u2019t get back in a fruit harvest every year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you\u2019re looking for fruit trees that are easier to maintain and have fewer problems, consider planting native fruit species such as pawpaw, persimmon, elderberry, blueberry, juneberry, mayhaw, blackberry, and red mulberry. \u00a0For more information about these native species, check out our UGA Publication, \u201cMinor Fruits and Nuts in Georgia<\/a>\u201d available on our website or at the county Extension office.\u00a0 Figs are another low maintenance fruit that can be grown in Georgia, even though they are not native.\u00a0 Muscadines are a native grape that grows well in this part of Georgia, although they require a trellis and a lot of pruning to maintain them. \u00a0We also have factsheets on each of these major fruit species<\/a> if you are interested in learning about specific varieties recommended for Georgia and how to care for them.\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n Paul Pugliese is the Extension\nCoordinator and Agricultural & Natural Resources Agent for Bartow County\nCooperative Extension, a partnership of The University of Georgia, The U.S.\nDepartment of Agriculture, and Bartow County. \nFor more information and free farm, lawn, or garden publications, call\n(770) 387-5142 or visit our local website at <\/em><\/strong>ugaextension.org\/bartow<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The weather has been unusually warm to start out this year.\u00a0 I noticed the flower buds on my plum and pear trees starting to swell and show some color in February.\u00a0 Unfortunately, if this warm weather continues, we will end up having a premature bloom on many fruit tree species.\u00a0 In some years, it is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":290,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fruit","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/bartow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/bartow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/bartow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/bartow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/290"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/bartow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=291"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/bartow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":292,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/bartow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291\/revisions\/292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/bartow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/bartow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/bartow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}