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  • From: Jay Cutts <orders@cuttsreviews.com>
  • To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [NAFEX] pawpaw flowers & freeze temp
  • Date: Tue, 27 Apr 2010 11:21:38 -0600

This brings up the general issue of trying to protect plants with flowers or new fruit from frost this time of year. We recently had two nights forcast at lows of 28. I tried to put sheets of 1 mil clear plastic over several of my nanking cherries, one of which is about 8' tall. With winds of 30 mph and freezing slush falling, it was a nightmare. I got the plastic over the trees with a lot of tugging but couldn't get it to stay in place. The sail effect was making the plastic whip 30 lb rocks (used to anchor the plastic) into the air like ping pong balls.

Putting plastic over the trees had sounded like such a simple idea!

Not sure why you say black plastic would be bad. Seems like it would warm up the space that the plant is in if left on during the day. However, I'm wondering if there was really any protective effect at all with the plastic I used. With the wind blowing like that, unless I had an airtight space, it may be that the temperature inside the plastic tent was not any different than that outside.

I've sometimes thought of string little Xmas lights onto the branches to generate just a touch of warmth. But again with strong winds, it doesn't seem like it would help.

Any thoughts?

Regards,

Jay

Jay Cutts
Director, Cutts Graduate Reviews
Lead Author, Barron's Test Prep Publications
800-353-4898 day or eve, 7 days
(In NM, 505-281-0684)




Hal Love wrote:
Pawpaws fail to set fruit here in TN quite commonly due to spring freezes,
so they seem to be quite sensitive. From my experience, plastic bags can
INCREASE the damage massively. If the bag is clear or white and you can keep
it from touching anything, then it may help. Dark colored material will
radiate heat very efficiently, so it should always be avoided. I have used
double layers of white sheets over mine without issues. I doubt that 32F
would be a problem, but 28-29F for a few hours could do the flowers in.

Hal

----- Original Message ----- From: "mIEKAL aND" <qazingulaza@gmail.com>
To: "North American Fruit Explorers" <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Tuesday, April 27, 2010 8:53 AM
Subject: [NAFEX] pawpaw flowers & freeze temp


For the first time I have a couple PA Golden pawpaws in full flower &
of course it's gonna get around 32 tonight. I don't think we're
expecting a hard frost. I have a huge plastic bag laying around & was
wondering if that would do the trick. How susceptible are the
flowers?

~mIEKAL
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