North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Scott Smith <scott@cs.jhu.edu>]

Alan, the high-sky sun is from around 10AM to 2PM (there is not too much difference in intensity in that period) but the air is much warmer in the 12-2 part making it overall the most stressful period for plants not happy in heat.  So, shading in that period alone would be the ideal I would say, or maybe until 3PM.  The number of planting spots  with such shade is few however; it is much more common to find a spot with morning but no afternoon sun and so I think that is why people talk about afternoon shading.  I had some currants in a spot with only morning sun and they were very happy.  I also had some ribes in a spot with more shade and they were not happy there.  Given my good luck with my morning sun planting I have put in a new ribes planting this spring which gets sun from morning to noon.

Scott

zone 6/7 Maryland

In a posting about ribes in the lower zones it was recently suggested that they'd appreciate protection from the afternoon sun. Speaking theoretically it seems to me that they would need protection from mid-day or high-sky sun. The poster might have meant early afternoon sun but at least the last half of afternoon should be an ideal light intensity in zone 8 just as late morning sun would not be. Make sense? If I'm correct the ideal strategy would be to have the shading directly over-head. Can anyone coroberate this with actual experience?