316 Peach-Growing 



Adverse temperature and other climatic conditions during 

 the blossoming period are sometimes fatal to the crop, even 

 though no freezing occurs. The pollen will not germinate 

 well except in bright, fairly warm weather. The insects, 

 especially the bees which are largely instrumental in polli- 

 nating the blossoms, are not active in cold, rainy, or very 

 windy weather. If very heavy, beating showers occur 

 repeatedly during the blossoming period, there is danger of 

 most of the pollen being washed away. 



Thus, if any of these adverse conditions prevail in an 

 extreme measure during the blossoming period, the setting 

 of the fruit is likely to be very light. Sometimes when one 

 or more of these conditions prevails, the fruits start to grow, 

 and before they acquire much size they begin to drop, and 

 in such instances the dropping may continue until practi- 

 cally no fruit is left on the trees. This doubtless may be 

 ascribed justly to imperfect pollination on account of adverse 

 weather conditions. The "June drop" usually consists 

 of fruits that were not well pollinated, even when no notably 

 adverse conditions have prevailed. 



There are no means of overcoming or preventing this form 

 of injury but precautions can be exercised and certain 

 measures adopted that will help materially in avoiding the 

 injury due to adverse winter temperatures and untimely 

 spring frosts. These will now be considered. 



CULTURAL METHODS IN RELATION TO WINTER INJURY 



While a good location is perhaps one of the most effective 

 ways of insuring a peach crop and of avoiding injury due to 

 adverse climatic conditions, much can be accomplished in 

 this direction by wise cultural methods. Some of these 



