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Light frost last night

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Amadioranch



Joined: 07 Jan 2012
Posts: 88

PostPosted: Sat Jan 12, 2013 7:23 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ouch!


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myamberdog



Joined: 21 May 2011
Posts: 323
Location: palm springs, california

PostPosted: Sat Jan 12, 2013 9:23 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I know AMADIO - I saw your post on the "other" forum....
it's going to get uglier I'm afraid...tonight and/or tommorrow
night it's going to dip even more....

But like I asked you over there - aren't your
things in a greenhouse or two...and heated????

What was the temp inside them?


Yours in the war on cold,

myamberfang
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Amadioranch



Joined: 07 Jan 2012
Posts: 88

PostPosted: Sat Jan 12, 2013 9:52 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I have various things planted all over this 1.5 acres. While we do have a greenhouse (or better called a high tunnel) its used for growing vegetables only. For all the high value items like mangoes I build a heated structure around them in November and it stays up till April 1. The various sapotes I have are in good mircoclimates which helps alot but I do protect them on nights like these where its down to the teens with lights and blankets. But I find sapotes to be pretty frost hardy otherwise. Had to cover the barbados cherries for the first time last night, otherwise they and all my fejoia are in a warm(ish) spot. My in ground bananas I bubble wrap and stuff with straw and they seem to do fine with that. Guavas, starfruit, allspice, pineapples, angels trumpets, cinnamon, cherimoya, all live adjacent to my hot tub and normally dont need much but on nights like these I do add heat. Our 75ft of passionfruit vine has been taking a wallop this winter. Last winter I did nothing for it and it was fine.

The war on cold indeed.


Last edited by Amadioranch on Sat Jan 12, 2013 5:43 pm; edited 1 time in total
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myamberdog



Joined: 21 May 2011
Posts: 323
Location: palm springs, california

PostPosted: Sat Jan 12, 2013 10:44 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Didn't realize you had such a huge setup...lots of choices to
make when it gets this cold, I'm sure....

Yeah, funny, the war on cold as the globe warms.....

well, good luck tonight and tomorrow night - I have a feeling
this will be the sink or swim moment for our tropicals this
winter.....

(if it would only stay near the normal temps, all would be fine)

With our super-technological society, maybe someday soon
they'll be able to control the weather enough
just to do that!!!!!!!


MDog
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Amadioranch



Joined: 07 Jan 2012
Posts: 88

PostPosted: Sat Jan 12, 2013 5:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The survey of the damage from last night is depressing.........I didnt expect to see these types of lows this winter. I guess like all good lessons its comes with a cost. Next year I will have a better plan. Ill have far more christmas lights on hand. Enough for every plant. Ill also have more blankets and sheets/frost cloth on hand.

The one thing I believe ive lost that breaks my heart is my roughly 75' of fredricks passionfruit vine. We were very much looking forward to fruit this coming year but I guess we will have to start from square one again.
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phoenixtropicals
Site Admin


Joined: 06 May 2008
Posts: 1207
Location: Mesa Arizona

PostPosted: Sat Jan 12, 2013 6:46 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Amadio aka Eric,

You are correct about the plastic . I had several plants under plastic with a 75 watt bulb and they got beat up. I think it helped some though. It was better than nothing. However, I won't use just plastic again.

In the past, I have generally used frost cloth, the thicker varieties, and added a 75 watt bulb in the structure. My results with this were mixed. My plants lived but often got hit fairly hard when we had really extreme weather, which for my neighborhood means below 30 degrees. I noticed that the frost cloth just let too much air through. Seems like frost cloth is really made for protecting veggies right on the ground where pass through air circulation is not much of an issue. With larger plants you get much more air flow.

So, this year I decided to try both plastic, and frost cloth combined with plastic. The plastic alone didn't protect things very much but the frost cloth with plastic over it seems to have worked perfectly. My mangoes where covered like this and were completely untouched.

I think you mentioned a combination like this in a post a while back.

Here is my scientific analysis on why the combo of frost cloth plus plastic works so well.

Heat transfers three ways:

conduction - heat passes through objects
radiation - like the sun shining on you
convection - moving air, fluids etc.

Frost cloth works well for conduction and radiation but not convection.
Plastic blocks convection but allows the other two modes.

The only problem with plastic is that it can turn your little impromptu green house into a plant cooker in the sun, but white frost cloth being underneath it would help a lot with that. What about a plant sufficator?

On a side note: I am also going to reduce the number of frost tender plants I have. I just have way too much stuff to protect and this crazy polar vortices weather we are getting just does not help.

By the way. It was 28°F here this morning right before sunrise. I am always amazed how much colder your place is.

Good luck tonight.
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phoenixtropicals
Site Admin


Joined: 06 May 2008
Posts: 1207
Location: Mesa Arizona

PostPosted: Sat Jan 12, 2013 7:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Question Amadio. Does your greenhouse have a double layer of plastic? The one at the ag. extension office has a double layer. One on the inside of the frame and one on the outside. I think maybe this adds to the ability of it to insulate.
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myamberdog



Joined: 21 May 2011
Posts: 323
Location: palm springs, california

PostPosted: Sun Jan 13, 2013 12:12 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

absolutely it does, PT. That layer or air is an insulation
bubble between.....

And i also am now using Frost Cloth AND plastic on my
mangoes......I think that is the key,with or without supplemental
heat....


I'm at 34.5 degrees right now as I hit the sack at
11 pm.....


MDog
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Amadioranch



Joined: 07 Jan 2012
Posts: 88

PostPosted: Sun Jan 13, 2013 7:54 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Heres the Saturday night report. Low of 13.6 degrees at 6am inside the unheated greenhouse. Low of 15 degrees in the orchard. Ugh. Double Ugh.

You guys are on the right track with layers. Ive found the very best to be a tarp+heavy blanket. And as far as it turning into a cooker....ive not found a way to leave anything in place 24/7 thats satisfactory to me. I install my covers everynight as the sun is setting. It only takes 5 mins the way I have it set up.

My greenhouse (really more correctly called a high tunnel) is a work in progress. I just finished it a few months ago and it currently is a single layer of 4 mil greenhouse poly. Ive seen the dual layer system and am considering them. The issue is the amount of expense with the additional layer of poly (+$400) and then having the provide additional heat vs the return. It may just be more wise to either grow cold tolerant varieties inside or take the 3 cold months of winter off. The original concept of having the greenhouse was to grow tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant all year. But as im seeing in practice we are just too cold here for it without spending a ton heating the structure.
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Amadioranch



Joined: 07 Jan 2012
Posts: 88

PostPosted: Sun Jan 13, 2013 7:59 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

But as Phoenix Tropicals has pointed out before...on the bright side we can grow some kick ass stone fruit out here because of the high chill hours. lol Im betting we will be pushing 800 or 900 chill hours if this keeps up. Its only rising about 45 degrees out here for a few hours a day right now.
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Bkaus



Joined: 31 Jul 2012
Posts: 136
Location: North Phoenix

PostPosted: Sun Jan 13, 2013 8:48 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

It got really cold at my place today 15 Ave and Union Hills measured 24 Dec in the yard this morning. My son put out a container of water and it had an over an inch of ice in it.

What I did with my tropical plants, I just started in July of 2012 and most everything was still in pots so they got moved in a 12' by 7' by 7' green house. I have been getting by with 450 watts of heat but yesterday I had to up it to 750watts last nights the low in the green house was 36 Dec. Looking at the forecast it looks to be 3 Dec colder tonight.
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phoenixtropicals
Site Admin


Joined: 06 May 2008
Posts: 1207
Location: Mesa Arizona

PostPosted: Sun Jan 13, 2013 10:39 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Got to 27°F here last night. The big ficus trees at the local school are probably really hammered. It shows how rare this kind of weather is here because these trees were over 30 feet tall before the 2007 freeze. I'd say there are 20 feet tall now and probably are down to 15 after this.
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myamberdog



Joined: 21 May 2011
Posts: 323
Location: palm springs, california

PostPosted: Sun Jan 13, 2013 12:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

so, thismorning I didn't get up till 7 am but was surprised to see a 34.5 reading on the thermometer...I can only assume it was near or just below freezing at it's lowest point at 4 - 4:30.....I turned on my sprinklers for their cycle at 3 am last night, just to throw a little something at this cold...who know's if it helped....

But the plants all seem fine....

I'm sorry you guys have had just horrible beat-down cold for your tropicals....it pains me cuz I've lost stuff in the past in my more ignorant
days of winter.....

I've got a Valencia Pride and an Edward mango pushing flowers (about an inch or so long) that started over a month ago, but because of this cold their pushing has been almost suspended, but they do look ok for now....


myambermutt
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ajbcirc



Joined: 13 Apr 2011
Posts: 97

PostPosted: Sun Jan 13, 2013 1:20 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well, we have a prediction for 26 degrees at the Phoenix airport for tonight. That means we can easily see 20-21.
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phoenixtropicals
Site Admin


Joined: 06 May 2008
Posts: 1207
Location: Mesa Arizona

PostPosted: Sun Jan 13, 2013 8:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

AZ centrals lows and the lows on the news for downtown Phoenix have been consistently off. They were saying 27 for a bunch of days and then it ended up being 31.

AZ central used to be the most accurate forecast but I've given up on them. Budget cuts maybe? Outsourced the weather guy, ha ha? Their web page for the weather isn't near as good as it used to be either. They used to list the dew point and have details like almanac averages etc. All gone as far as I can tell.

I have found weather.com to be almost spot on every night. I take their forecast for downtown Phoenix and subtract 4 degrees to estimate my temps.

weather.com says 31 for phoenix tonight which means I'll be down to 27. They predicted the same temp. last night and hit it on the nose.
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