To: "North American Fruit Explorers" <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Frost protection
Date: Wed, 4 Apr 2007 22:05:43 -0500
Hector is down in a hole, he can get away with a single layer of protection
because there's no wind down there. I just saw him in the grocery, he'll be
irrigating, so I think his blueberries will make it. Mine are on a slope, I
can try to cover them somewhat, but I doubt it will do a bit of good. As
for Richard Moyer saying he looks forward to this freeze to see what
survives, he must be on a very chilly north facing slope. We have nothing
left to bloom except the persimmons and chestnuts. It's not just plums,
peaches, pears and apples that are done blooming, the cherries and oaks are
in bloom right now. We are talking about practically zero fruit and mast
crops for the whole central part of the eastern US. We've got sheets over
our strawberries, that always works for them.
Do remember that most plants won't freeze at 32 degrees. Depending on
how much antifreeze they have left in them, not much right now, they can be
alright down to about 28, even 25. I notice that one weather service,
Intellicast, is predicting much higher temps than the National Weather
Service. Has anyone else checked with them for your area? I wonder what
they think is going on? NWS has a forcast discussion that can be useful,
esp as they have been wrong, wrong, wrong for us on both precipitation and
temps all winter long. (Unfortunately they have been wrong on the warm side
when the fronts have come in this winter. If they are 5-8 degrees too high
this time, that's a low of 14-17.) My husband found someone on there saying
that the computer predictions on precipitation had been running too high all
along and he'd been reducing them for the forecast. They have still been
too high. We got under 4/10 inch of rain in March.
Donna
P.S. Tanis, put your trees in the shed. I sure wish I could do the same
with all mine.