2022 has been another strange, if much better spring. Very dry with less than 25% of normal rainfall (irrigating already!)and although it was frosty on and off until min April it’s been generally Ok since then with only a few leaves catching a cold.
The regular frost has meant we have the odd situation of most of the earlier cultivars breaking bud but having delayed leaf growth, they’re now covered in juvenile leaves when most would be in full leaf. The later varieties like Fernor, Franquette and A117 Kesei will probably be not much later.
There are quiet a lot of male flowers nearing pollen drop on some cultivars and like Lara below they don’t have much leaf yet, female flowers are just appearing on Mars, Jupiter and Broadview but other varieties are later still (out of sync!).
The small new heartnuts (with some help from fleece) have faired better than most years and should get a decent season to put on growth and try and recover some of the lost last 4 years. A few new cultivars gone in this year and a few new ones will go in later this year and we’ll have 14 cultivars if they all survive.
Pecans, Hickories and Hicans all seem to be getting a decent start this year (again fleece has helped) and although they won’t catch up from previous years they should start putting on top growth now that the tap roots have really gone down. We intend to add another half a dozen Ultra Northern cultivars next year, our supplier is still struggling to get decent pecan rootstocks in Europe which has set back things 2 years.