Last week’s unseasonably warm weather in the 60s and 70s caused many trees across Iowa to start budding, and February is way too early for that, according to Tivon Feeley, the Iowa D-N-R’s forest health program leader.
The return to winter weather and temperatures in the 20s will spell trouble for those tiny, tender leaves. “We know that leaf tissue that’s very fragile can freeze, and when that happens, it’ll cause damage to those leaves when they emerge,” Feeley says. “They may emerge green and look healthy, but as we get warmer in June, early July, that tissue will turn brown and fall out.”
Feeley says that’s simply a delayed response to cold injury that occurred earlier in the season. The leaf buds that are appearing now aren’t the only buds the trees will generate during spring, but leaves are vital to tree health and photosynthesis. Feeley says there should be -no- long-term threat to tree health.
