I got some cold temps coming my way in the northeast, 35 degrees. Not sure I should do anything.
@alan
This is the version i bought from aliexpress i have net to try to use. its listed as in soil or in air operation of course the temperature probe is only checking one spot.
The second one the carbon fiber element seems like it would work better for trees. for one you only need to run 1 pair of current elements up the tree. Each carbon fiber wire can be connected and branched as needed. The only problem i see is the wire i posted is for use under concrete so its over kill for a tree at that power level .
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If you are talking about common fruit in the northeast like apple, pears, plums, peaches, etc., temp 30 F or warmer don’t bother them.
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I am talking about my dwarf cherries
My inground cherries are cold hardier than my peaches. I am a zone colder than yours.
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Alright
Most sweet cherry are hardy to zone 5.
Engineering is not my forte, to say the least, but that looks interesting. The heating mats use a lot of plastic that I could live without. My method of starting plants in my greenhouse involves setting their containers in trays filled with a potting mix and some compost and I allow the roots to grow out of the pots into those trays that also have heating pads beneath them. I occasionally move the pots to prune the roots.
This allows the plants to survive with less watering and if I forget I never lose anything because there is always a bit of root in the warm soil in the trays. On very cold nights I throw row cover fabric over my plants and the trays and even tomatoes can survive in there when temps drop as low as 25F.
I could probably set something up using only your wires.
Dew points 19
I never pay attention to dew point. If it makes you feel better to protect your tree, you should do it.
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I’ll try to find a way to protect it
Thanks cool
A more expensive, but possibly safer set up. https://www.amazon.com/Hydrofarm-JSHC48-JumpStart-Heating-48-Feet/dp/B00P218EFA/ref=sr_1_5?keywords=soil%2Bheating%2Bcable&qid=1650976642&sr=8-5&th=1
I’m thinking that’s the less safe solution the other two have controllers which support temperature proves.
With that last freeze, I went out and got a huge tarp, almost watched my kids blow away as they helped me wrestle it over my Methley plum tree. I have the old Xmas lights that feel fairly hot when you touch them and I wrapped these around two of my trees.
Once covered, the tree became like a sail. I honestly thought it might blow the tree away. What it did do was break several beaches, knock off many flowers and break some of the bulbs. The tarp ripped in several spots, leaving holes for whatever heat the lights made to escape. I don’t think it helped much for the price and effort.
My observation is that any flowers that were open froze and any that hadn’t opened survived. There are plums on the tree, just not as many as previous years, so who knows without having a control to compare to.
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You can order the controllers from the same page. I thought the wires looked much more heavy duty.
Hmmmm…Thank you for posting your experience. If I do this, I may try remay row covers instead of a tarp. We have winds that come up out of nowhere and are rather strong; I could see having the same problem with a tarp. Maybe the weight of the row cover would be less and less destructive overall.
I like the barbell weights to hold everything down!!
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By the way, mulch is said to reduce the warming affect of stored warmth in the soil- obviously if tarp is wrapped to trunk it wouldn’t matter but the literature generally warns against that affect in increasing the chance of late frost damage on still, cold nights. If you were depending on ground warmth instead of Christmas lights it would also be good to know. A tarp that captures warmth from the ground does provide quite a bit of protection without the lights.
I posted in a couple of threads a while ago that I gave up covering with tarp. The wind caused cords to tangled up and broke branches causing more damage to my plum trees than had I left the trees alone.
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