College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences
By: Maria Smith, HCS-OSU
2026 has been a long year, and yet it is only May. All of our fortitude is being tested, whether that is in the form of waiting out the winter polar vortex in January for the hope of primary or secondary buds to emerge this spring, or now, waiting out for any secondary buds to emerge following the past two weeks of sub-freezing temperatures with the growing season underway.
By: Maria Smith, HCS-OSU
Buds are breaking across Ohio and here in Wooster (Fig. 1), but frost risk looms again tonight. A few regions of Ohio reached damaging temperatures for green tissues on the morning of April 22 (Fig. 2), with minor damage observed in some vineyards in Central and Southern Ohio.
By: Imed Dami and Maria Smith, HCS-OSU
Freeze advisories were issued the week of May 15 and temperature dropped below freezing on May 18. The lowest temperatures ranged between 28 oF and 31 oF. These freeze events were thankfully not widespread and occurred mainly in northeast Ohio (see map below). Note that this was the latest freeze since 26 May 2013 for Wooster and the second latest freeze on record since 1997.
By: Imed Dami and Maria Smith, HCS-OSU
By: Maria Smith, HCS-OSU
Following last weekend’s warm weather, bud break has arrived in many early varieties (e.g., Marquette, La Crescent, Itasca, Marechal Foch). These varieties are now more vulnerable to freeze and frost events since more developed shoots are progressively less tolerant of temperatures below 32 F (Figure 1, Table 1).
