According to Oleg Tirsine, Chairman of the Association of Nut Growers of Moldova ANRM, walnuts are in principle sensitive to late spring frosts. However, it blossoms quite a long time after the resumption of vegetation in spring. Accordingly, the frosts in the first half of April caught only early varieties (however, among them is “Peschanski”, one of the most commercially successful Moldovan-Ukrainian walnut varieties).
However, Oleg Tirsine notes that only some fruit buds and male flowers, the most vulnerable to low air temperatures, have frozen. Subsequently, lateral buds may well become the basis of a good harvest. In this regard, the expert recalled the situation in April 2017, when a cyclone snowstorm caused great visible damage to walnut plantations, but its harvest that year turned out to be one of the highest in the five-year period.
