What I want is a freeze that kills about 80% of my stone fruit and apple flowers. Has anyone anywhere ever had a goldilocks freeze?
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is that frost kill divided evenly around the tree though?
I’m not sure it would give the same result as normal hand thinning. If had 90+% flower kills on tree’s. And the flowers more sheltered survived. And i still had multiple fruits per cluster. Just a lot of clusters with 0 fruit.
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Maybe if it occured on a breezy night distribution of killed flowers would be even, although I suppose kings on apples might be more vulnerable.
I’d say this is wrong. The article says keep the ice wet. Why suggest that one can time it? For what purpose, to save a bit of water?
here I’m also saying to keep the ice wet. IE if it’s not wet you need to make it wet…
So i think we’re both saying the same…
If you assume a temperature of 22F and a windspeed of 2-4 mph. The article says you need 0.24 inch per hour of irrigation.
Assuming a fruit tree that spans a surface area of 6 m^2 (roughly 65 square feet)
you would need
0.240.02546*1000=36.6 liters an hour (little under 10 gallon an hour)
It’s likely a home system running full blast will overwater extremely. Thus running the well dry like topic starter is afraid off.
So timing it to save some water and not run the well dry seems like a prudent thing to do…
Unless you have the same system as is the industry standard you can’t just blindly follow industry standard advice…
What I have found before is that if I run the sprinkler at full blast for about 2 1/2 hours straight, I go dry.
If I could somehow make the system only put out 10 GPH, or even 30, I would be OK. But if I simply turn the nozzle down to where it’s almost off, I can get that much water flow, but I don’t have enough pressure to make the sprinkler actually work
I kind of assume about a 5 to 6 GPM yield on my well. The problem is the pump puts out about 8 GPM, so that’s why it eventually runs dry.
Maybe you could split off of the main hose/pipe to bleed of roughly half the water back into the well? That way the pump will stop pump 8gpm but only half is drained from the well.
Don’t try this method of freeze control if you aren’t set up correctly. It’s dangerous both from a temperature standpoint but also tree damage from weight of ice.
You aren’t set up correctly. Even if you renozzle to lower flow rate your well isn’t up to it. Don’t do it.
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Have you actually done this for freeze control? I have and it’s a mess. Ice and water everywhere. Trees bent to the point of breaking. If not done correctly it can make damage worse.
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As I mentioned before spray copper days before the cold which kills bacteria “Bacterial ice-nucleation proteins is a family of proteins that enable Gram-negative bacteria to promote nucleation of ice at relatively high temperatures. These proteins are localised at the outer membrane surface and can cause frost damage to many plants.”
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The forecast has stabilized at a low of 22 Tuesday.
I think that is below any ability to give frost protection, it’s hard freeze territory.
Thanks to Clarkinks for the link and to you for reposting it !
Well, if we are talking about spraying water in cold weather the experts are on ski slopes, and they use powerful air compressors to save water and make as fine a mist as possible so it will freeze before it hits the ground. For them temps in the low 20’s are barely useful. I have to guess that in a mist form the water is giving up it’s heat quickly and fairly uniformly to the air. If we really wanted to up it a notch we could use heated water. If the mist turns to snow it will mostly land on the ground, and won’t be as damaging as ice,but the mist may form ice on the tree. Fine tuning needed.
This is getting a little complicated to pull off, but on a small scale it would be an interesting experiment.
Would I do that now for a freeze in a few days? Our lowest predicted is just 32, but I know how that can drop as we get closer. Mine are either in bloom, in the shuck, or toast from 23F a couple of weeks ago (2 apricots).
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Yes spray asap it’s got to be on there for a few days to help.
Got it! Thanks! I would have done it the day of.
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I mentioned before on the forum that I had heard that foliar sprays of seaweed provide several degrees of protection. Having said that, I don’t have any leaves to speak of. I doubt there would be any absorption.
I have taped those extra large hand warmers to the crotch of trees in such weather. I doubt it made any difference but it made me feel better. When there was a spring sale I bought up all they had.
Some have told me those small round smudge pots actually release very little heat. Not sure what to believe.
Last year I drove around for 6 + hours two nights in a row with a dual propane burner attached to my atv. I literally wore a path in the orchard. Sadly the throttle (or similar)froze and the engine raced uncontrollably. I actually ran into a tree and caught part of the leaves on fire because I couldn’t get the thing to stop.
Another one of those stories for the grandkids.
On a more positive note, a rocket launched and flew up the east coast at 6am. I was able to see it as it flew across the sky with a plume behind it because I was out in my yard driving around the orchard endlessly. That was cool!!!
And yes, even though it hit 24 for several hours, I had a good harvest. Was that because of my efforts or would it have been so anyway? Who knows for sure.
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If it ends up close to 32, I wouldn’t even blink.
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