North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Elizabeth Hilborn <ehilborn@mebtel.net>]

Dan,
I just gained some experience Friday night.  Our 40 warm (and hot - 87 
degrees!) frost-free days have produced much new, tender growth on 
multiple plants. The grape leaves have emerged the least of all my 
fruit.  We had a frost Friday night, the temp dropped to 33.6 F.

At sunset, I covered the kiwis with agribon, some with a canvas tarp, 
some with cotton bedsheets. I coupled the 'tents' I made to the ground 
and placed buckets of water inside the tents. I left the laterals of one 
plant uncovered as a control as I had observed damage on covered plants 
previous years.

Today I noticed that all the plants looked good with minor differences. 
The uncovered kiwi had zero damage. The covered plants (with all kinds 
of covers) froze where plant material touched the cover. The foliage was 
protected under covers where there was no contact.

I believe that you are right: moisture condensed on the agribon and 
fabric and created local freeze spots due to evaporative cooling.

Betsy Hilborn
7a NC

Anyone have much success with using agribon row cover to protect new 
grape shoots from a late frost? The book Northern Winework suggests it 
as an option. We had a "late" frost last night and the shoots that 
weren't protected with row cover seemed to have less damage than the 
ones with the row cover. Could this be the result of evaporative cooling 
from dew condensing on the fabric? Dan __________________