MaluSim models were run on May 16 for Winchester and Central Virginia.

As I spoke about at the Winchester breakfast meeting on Thursday morning, the Winchester forecast is calling for warm and cloudy weather starting today and running through most of next week. From many year’s of research, we know that these are the conditions under which there is a fair amount of natural thinning and that chemical thinners can be particularly active. When the weather data is run through the MaluSim model, we see that there is a carbohydrate deficit between -40 to -60 g CHO/day predicted for the next 10 days. This means that chemical thinners that are applied over the next several days will likely be fairly active. With this in mind, growers should consider reducing rates and/or not using a surfactant. Growers with blocks that sustained freeze damage on Tuesday morning, should consider further reducing rates. As always, you should be checking your trees and making decisions based upon the conditions in your own orchard.

For Central Virginia (Piney River), the carbohydrate deficits over the next week will remain in the negative, but not be as low as the Winchester area. This means that chemical thinners applied from today through the weekend will likely be slightly aggressive when used at standard rates. Growers should be regularly checking their blocks for current conditions. By now, you should be able to see some effect of the cloudy weather that the region experienced early last week.

Here are the pdf files that contain the weather data and the MaluSim models:

Peck Central VA MaluSim 5_16_13

Peck Winchester VA MaluSim 5_16_13