quite dead. We purchased her as a one gallon tree in May of 2008, and planted
her immediately. She has grown quite well, to a height of almost 5 feet, and
even produced a few fruit last year. But she does not seem to be coming out of
her winter slumber. There are no signs of growth of any kind on any of her
branches, and she has developed 3 suckers (which she never did before). Any
suggestions or advice? We would hate to think we’ve lost her.
A. We also had some significant dieback to pomegranate
at our orchard as well on some varieties of pomegranate. We have 12 varieties growing there. This was not
due, in my opinion, to unusually low winter temperatures but rather the timing
of some winter freezes. We had two bad
ones come through Southern Nevada; one in the fall in November and the other
one late spring. I think the one in
November did the most harm.
To my knowledge no one has published the minimum temperature for pomegranate varieties. In a general sense, it is common knowledge that 10F (-12 C) is generally regarded as pomegranates minimum temperature without freezing but this is not correct. It varies among varieties, if the plant had an application of fertilizer late in the growing season or not and what the weather was like prior to freezing temperatures. Like any other plant, its ability to withstand winter freezing has a lot to do with what the fall or spring temperatures were like prior to hitting that 10F and how the plant was managed.
Most
pomegranates are grown on their own roots and so hopefully you will see some
suckering from the base of the plant particularly if it was mulched during the
winter. We also had some dieback to
some figs which was unusual for us.