|
Post by daylilydude on Mar 8, 2018 13:01:53 GMT -5
With this strange weather we are having those of you with fruit trees how do you protect them against frost or freezing?
|
|
|
Post by farmerjack41 on Mar 8, 2018 14:45:39 GMT -5
Two different ways to work on this problem. Number one, you can turn sprinklers (over head), the water will freeze and keep the temperature around the buds from going below 32 degrees. This being the fruit bowl of the country, quite a few orchards do this. You can also have fans pointing into the trees. I used box box fans for this. That will help keep the temperature up about four degrees. Around here airplane props are mounted on a 30 tower. They are powered by V10 ford motors. Also in this country they use a heaters, burning either diesel or propane. On cold nights, late in the bloom, some of the fans and heaters get started as early as 10:00 pm. Expensive but saves the fruit.
|
|
|
Post by paulf on Mar 8, 2018 22:41:21 GMT -5
We just take our chances. I have an eighty year old apricot that fruits about one year in four. It blooms too early for most years. The fruit is small and really tasty and we take what we get. All the other fruit trees seem to wait until after frost to blossom. If my living depended on it, I would move farther south.
|
|
Deleted
Posts: 0
Joined: January 1970
|
Post by Deleted on Mar 9, 2018 4:30:22 GMT -5
Often enough, the peaches get frosted out down here in north Texas, too. I'm so old I recall smudge pots, LOL.
|
|
|
Post by farmerjack41 on Mar 9, 2018 8:01:59 GMT -5
Imp: they still use smudge pots here, burn diesel, not used motor oil like they did at one time. I remember the days when the orchard heating method was to burn old tires. It would take till noon for the air to clean up enough to see the sun.
|
|
|
Post by brownrexx on Mar 9, 2018 8:40:12 GMT -5
I remember seeing smudge pots in New Jersey when I was kid but we only have about 10 fruit trees, mostly pears and they do not have any fruit when there is danger of frost. Once in a while some of the buds have frozen but we do not do anything about that and we usually get fruit anyway.
|
|
|
Post by Laura_in_FL on Mar 9, 2018 10:43:01 GMT -5
I never protected my deciduous fruit trees, but they were varieties well-suited to the Gulf Coast in terms of bloom time, so I didn't need to protect them. By that I mean that: A: They had a low chill hours requirement. -- PLUS -- B: They either (1) had a high heat requirement to initiate bloom and/or (2) staggered their blooms over several weeks so that at least some of the blooms survive. Citrus is another matter, though. Commercial citrus growers still use smudge pots in central FL, through most have gone to sprinklers now for pollution reasons. But my neighbors would have a cow over smudge pots here. And a residential water supply doesn't work well for the high-flow sprinklers you need to protect trees from freezing. So, before my Satsuma got too big to protect, I used to wrap it with sheets, tarps, or anything I could find that was big enough. In addition, sometimes I strung it with little incandescent Christmas lights or put a small electric greenhouse heater under the cover with it. when I used a heater, I would bring the cover straight down to the ground at the dripline and weight it to the ground with everything I could find. That would leave open space under the branches, allowing me to put the heater underneath the cover without having to put it dangerously close to the trunk or the cover. I didn't want to set the cover or tree on fire, after all! The citrus I have in pots now is going to be planted o the south side of the house (the old location was east of the house). The new planting location should be good for at least 5 degrees of cold protection, plus shelter from the cold, dry North winds in winter. With hardy varieties, I should rarely need to protect them. (I hope!)
|
|