That time of year again is approaching when we concern ourselves with crop loss due to a late freeze that kills the blossoms and fruit on plum and peach and even apple. I would like to hear about anyone’s experience using orchard heaters, in particular, 55 gallon drums used as burn barrels for orchard heating. I did use one a couple years ago to save my plums and it seemed to work but I can’t prove it. I filled the thing up with waste wood and let it burn and smoulder all night, reloading around 3 am. Safely burning is always a concern of mine…the grass was green and wet through the overnight so everything was fine in that regard.
I chose another route to deal with late frosts by covering my plum or peach trees with tarps or large painter clothe sheet with a high watts light bulb hanging in the center of the tree. The heat will protect the blossoms.
Tony
Swamps,
I’ve not used burn barrels, but I think they would be very effective to protect a smaller number of trees. Farmers used to use smudge pots to heat their orchards, which is the same concept as a burn barrel.
I know of one orchard around here who burns round bales to protect their orchard from frosts.
I’ve considered round bales, or burning wood, but haven’t done so yet. The biggest part of the reason is that the weather forecasting is so imprecise, I never know for certain if there is going to be a freeze event or not. Sometimes the NWS will call for 32F, but the temps end up going down to 27F. Other times they will call for 26-27F, but it never gets below 32. So I’d never know if I should prepare to burn or not. For me, it would take a lot of prep to get ready to burn.
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Kansas weather is all over the place. One year I hit garden plants with water which worked but literally turned into an everyday thing.
What if you were able to use the earths geothermal as a heat source. You would have tubes down deep and a riser tube right at the trees. Blow air through the tub to grab some heat and push that 50 degrees right up the tree. Similar to that guy in Nebraska heating his greenhouse that way. This would be a huge job for a large operation but a small orchard it might be doable.
On a very small scale for the back yard gardener I wonder if this might work to gain you a zone. When I used to coon hunt I would be out on some pretty cold nights. One of the places we would stand and listen for the dogs had a hole about a foot a cross and three or four deep where I assume they had pulled a corner post at some time. You could see it steam when it was really cold. I would lay down on it and it would warm my back. I wonder if I were trying to grow a fig here in zone six that I could cover it for winter and also dig a hole next to it that would allow the ground heat to rise up into the covering and add some heat.
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The larger orchards and vineyards in my area use wind machines for frost protection. About 1 wind machine for each 7-10 acres. One local peach grower uses irrigation water for frost protection like the strawberry growers. He has thermometers in the orchard and uses them to decide when to start and stop the water. The ice buildup normally destroys some branches on the trees. Since its so hard on the trees,it may actually cost less to loose a portion of the crop to the frost rather than take a chance on destroying the trees with a huge layer of ice.