severe winter injury

A test winter here in NE North Dakota low teens in early october.lots of deep cold bottoming out at around -36° followed by a late cold spring. Young trees that died to the snowline, Honeygold, Kinderkrisp, Sweet Sixteen,Wedge,and a few Zestar!
Also have a lot of trees that bloomed and leafed out but the leaves are small and cupped new growth is starting to grow out and looks ok. Cambium looks green and juicy and is slipping well. Is this winter injury or something else? Any thoughts on what this is would be appreciated! Silver lining is that Honeycrisp look great!
On the line of zone 3and 4



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/19/2019 09:35AM by Michael Phillips.

Deep cold kills certain cultivars, end of story. Sorry to hear those otherwise hardy varieties died down to the snowline . . . but hopefully it was a deep snowline. Winter injury is more insidious, resulting in contorted cambium which restricts vascular flow. This is what you are seeing with respect to "leafout" being delayed, Trevor. This sort of damage happens when temperatures wildly fluctuate from one day to the next. This happens more often now in late fall , case in point being sub-zero temps in the northeast around Thanksgiving last year. One thing that can help is biodynamic tree paste to help restore both outer and inner bark tissues.

Lost Nation Orchard
Zone 4b in New Hampshire