The Winner Is…

The Santa Rosa Plum is the 1st fruit tree in the garden to pop.  It popped today.  The tree was planted on January 12, 2009 from bare root stock.  It bloomed on February 20, 2009.  We’re ahead of schedule this year!   It has been warm and sunny lately.  This may explain being a week ahead of last year.  I suspect bees will follow tomorrow since these opened in the late afternoon.  The pollen is almost fluorescent.  There are about 24 buds on the baby tree. These buds have a couple of flies on them and the biggest bud has a spot that looks like a burn.  All the fruit trees were sprayed with dormant oil this winter to help prevent infestation and disease.  The oil is suppose to be perfectly safe and recommended to use on these trees to eliminate borers.  I don’t know what these flies are up to; but I don’t like it.  I’ll keep an eye on this. The apricot looks like it will be the runner up.  Here’s the bud at the bothersome cut shown previously.  The sap is still formed but the bud has gotten a bit plumper.  Here it is last week (02/06/10).