Content
- Lime fruit tree and protect against frost damage
- Why and how you should lime fruit tree trunks
- How to detect frost and cold damage
- So, you prevent frost damage as well
- Tips
Lime protects fruit trees from frost damage
Lime fruit tree and protect against frost damage
For fruit trees from winter-mild regions such as quinces and peaches, severe winters and frosts in autumn or spring can have serious effects. Especially in spring, sudden cold spells cause great damage. Endangered is not only the fruit tree blossom, but also the bark of the woody plants. These can crack and thus offer pathogens a gateway.
Why and how you should lime fruit tree trunks
From mid-January, but no later than February, the tree trunks on the south side begin to warm on sunny days, while temperatures drop sharply in the following, clear nights. This creates tension in the bark tissue, which eventually leads to frost cracks. Even so-called frost plates - whereby parts of the bark fabric dry up - are the result of strong sunlight and extreme temperature fluctuations. In order to protect the fruit trees from these damages, they preventively with a Kalkbrühe. You can add some wallpaper paste for better adhesion or you can buy a finished lime or white coating from a specialist retailer. Incidentally, such a lime coating does not protect against pest infestation or game bites, it only reflects the sun's rays.
How to detect frost and cold damage
Typical frost damage is the bark cracks that occur on trunks and branches, which form deep cracks in severe cases or peel off like plates. You also recognize frost damage:
In most cases you only have to cut off the affected parts or even clear the whole tree. Fruit trees, which regenerate themselves by a new shoot, cut back in spring simply vigorously back to healthy wood.
So, you prevent frost damage as well
In addition to a lime paint, you can also protect your fruit trees from frost damage by the following measures:
Tips
If you forget the liming, put a board on the south side of each tree trunk. This also keeps the sunbeams off.