Chill catch-up

The orchard and vineyard on a cloudy day in mid-December, 2021. Some trees still have their fall color, most are bare, as are the vines. Sheep graze in the background.

It had been a very mild chilling season to start, but suddenly the chill mostly has caught up with last year. In all my years monitoring winter chill for my deciduous orchards–in San Diego County and now since mid-winter 2012-13 in Yolo County, pictured above–I have experienced very few 24+ hour periods like the current one. Below is a capture from my temperature station from Saturday evening. The high for the day was 44F. The low was 33F, but the temperature was below about 36 for only around five hours. And since then it has been even more remarkable: all night long and until a little after eight on Sunday morning the temperature has been a steady 40. As I type this, a little after 10:30 a.m., it is only 42.

Weather monitoring console as of 6:00 p.m., 18 December 2021. The lower left is a graph of hourly temperatures.

This range is prime chilling. An hour between about 38 and 45 is a full “chill unit.” Hours below about 38 but above freezing count for somewhat less than a full chill unit. Above 45 it also tapers, with some chill models saying you need to subtract hours above 65 or so from your running count (I have some reservations about that, based only on my own monitoring, but it matters little in my current climate–at least for now). Stone fruits and other deciduous fruiting trees have a chilling requirement, varying by fruit variety. Many varieties I grow here do their best with over 500 hours (or “units”), and a few would like 600. The hours/units do not need to be consecutive, but extended warm spells in the winter can accelerate the process of breaking dormancy. If that happens before the variety’s chilling requirement is met, fruit set will be reduced or nonexistent.

At the moment of my writing, we have had 24 chill units in the past 24 hours, and probably 20 in the preceding 24 hours. According to the UCANR station nearest me, the season total stands at around 234 chill units. At this point last year, it was 264. Last winter was a very good one. As of early December, I was a little concerned about the current winter chill season, as it had been so mild. The UCANR station, for example, showed only 122 chill units as of 9 December, compared to 211 on the same date the previous year–and 3 vs. 39 back on Nov. 17! But starting on the 10th of December, we have been enjoying overnight lows anywhere from 30 (which means some hours of no chill) to mid-40s (the prime range) with only one early morning low above that. And our daytime highs during this spell have not broken 60 and generally have been in the low 50s, till the unusual 44 yesterday. A couple good weeks really can make up for a slow start!

Climate change and fruit

Great piece in the Washington Post about the challenges to fruit growers and breeders arising from the changing climate. Breeders of deciduous fruits are racing to find varieties that can cope with reduced winter chill and more erratic springs, which are featuring more substantial swings of frost and warmth.

Smoke and chill

We have been dealing with heavy smoke from the Camp Fire in Butte County, which is a couple hours’ drive north of us. The weather conditions have been such that the smoke has settled and some days it has been like a fog that starts out moderately thick and never totally clears.

What I did not expect was that it would be so cold during this smoky phase. The fire began on 8 November, and the winds that initially made the fire so devastating died down late in the day on the 11th. Since then, we have had six straight mornings with low temperatures at 36F or lower, including three at 32 and two more at 33. This is substantially colder than the norm for this time of year. Usually–at least in the years I have been at this location–we do not get a morning below 32 until some time in December.

The NWS forecast discussion last night mentioned, “The smoke is keeping temperatures below normal blocking heating from the sun during the day and allowing heat to escape at night, unlike cloud cover.”

It is obvious that smoke cover would keep daytime highs down. In fact, we have not had a high temperature higher than 66 for the past six days, and some days have been only 62 or 63. That is near or a little below the norm for mid-November. (Normal low and high temperatures for the month of November around here would be more like 41 and 66.)

I would not have expected smoke to help keep it so cool overnight. Perhaps naively, I would have expected it to act more like cloud cover. Evidently, however, the fire has had the effect of getting our winter-chilling off to an early start. The deciduous trees are presumably dormant enough by now to “receive” chill, so this early cold snap is a good start.

The fire has been one of the worst disasters in the state in some time, and the air quality has resulted in UC Davis being shut down since 12 November and through the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday. Through all the awfulness, these cold mornings have been welcome.

Apricot blooming, 2018

The ‘Canadian White Blenheim’ apricot has reached full bloom. It has the pinkest flowers of any of the ten or so apricot varieties I’ve ever grown over many years. Strange, given that its fruit has one of the palest flesh tones of any apricot.

Canadian White Blenheim

This variety has fruited for me before, both here and in inland San Diego County. However, we have never had more than a few fruits in any one year, and the modal number of fruits of this variety per year has been zero. That is because it has had blooms that were anything but profuse. It is a pretty clear law of fruit-growing that if you have no blooms, you get no fruit.

In past years, when this variety has bloomed, it has been not only sparse, but also very late relative to the leafing out. That is unusual, in that most stone fruits are at full bloom before leaves really begin to emerge. I always assumed that the culprit was chilling; a stone fruit is unlikely to have a proper bloom if it has not met its winter chilling need during the dormant period. (Dave Wilson Nursery suggests 700 hours chilling needed for this variety.)

There was no question of chill not being met this year. While January was quite warm, both December and February had good long periods of chilly weather and deep cold snaps. In fact, the big fear I had was that an unusually late cold snap would adversely affect fruit trees, many of which typically begin blooming here by mid-February. Indeed, the ‘Flavor Delight’ aprium was in full bloom just when a hard freeze hit. While the tree’s foliage has recovered, there is no sign of any fruit set. The freeze hit it at just the wrong time.

Meanwhile, the ‘Royal’ (‘Blenheim’) apricot has had an odd spring. Normally, it would be blooming in mid/late February. It has a relatively low chilling requirement (from much experience, I’d estimate it at around 350, even though many catalogs and other sources say 400-500). Yet it remained mostly dormant until well into March. And it was not just my own rather old tree; a few trees with ‘Royal’ tags on them, planted on the UC Davis campus a few years ago, did the same. This is very strange.

Perhaps even stranger is that just now my ‘Royal’ is blooming like the ‘Canadian White Blenheim’ normally does–after it has leafed out. It has about a dozen blooms right now, scattered amidst well developed foliage.

Royal apricot

In many years of growing this variety, I have never seen it do this. So, just as one variety that normally blooms sporadically post-leaf-out is instead having a more normal-looking bloom, here an old reliable is exhibiting the staggered behavior of a tree that got insufficient chill.

It has been an odd winter, and even odder bloom season. It is too early to know if the white apricots will set fruit. I express that in the plural, because the ‘Monique’–another even whiter variety that also is hard to get to set in our climate–also had a pretty good bloom this year. The ‘Hunza‘ (a real favorite of mine with luscious complex-tasting flesh and an edible kernel) also is in full bloom right now.

So, while one can’t count one’s fruit this early*, indications are promising for the later-blooming trees. Another law of fruit-growing is that a profuse bloom does not guarantee a good fruit crop, but it certainly makes it more likely.
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*Today is the eve of Pesach (Passover). Somewhere in the Talmud it is suggested that Shavuot is the “Yom Kippur of fruit trees”, the day one which they are judged. That is about right, as in roughly fifty days we will have passed through (over?) the most perilous time for developing fruit. What holds that long has a pretty good chance of making it.

Fog and chill

It has been foggy in recent days. Far from my favorite kind of weather, especially when it sticks around all day.

Sometimes, however, it can be good for the chilling hours accumulation that the deciduous fruit trees need. It is the tendency towards multi-day dense fog events that has made the San Joaquin Valley (south of here) historically a good place for prunes, peaches, apricots, and other fruits that need winter chill to set well in the subsequent growing season.

However, this has been the case with this fog event only on one day, when we had a low of 39F and, due to the fog, the temperature did not reach 50 till after 10:00 a.m. Prime chilling temperatures are roughly 38 to 45, with some continuing but significantly diminishing value up to the lower 50s. So that day was a good chill day.

Not so much since. For the past two days, the temperature has just hovered in the 45-51 range. That’s pretty close to useless.

(I had been meaning to write about the fog and chill even before I saw that a reader had commented at a post that is almost 12 years old, with a question about chill. One of the things I always appreciate on this blog is people commenting on old threads. I almost never close comments, no matter how old the thread, unlike some other blogs out there.)

Chill hours, climate change, and my orchard’s winter so far

Temperatures are warming more in winter than other seasons, according to research carried out in the Central Valley, including here in Yolo County, by UC Agricultural and Natural Resources (UCANR). That is bad news for growers of deciduous nut and fruit trees.

Tree crops will move northward (a trend that is already noticeable). Breeders are working on new varieties of pistachios that have lower chilling requirements. In the shorter run, growers are working with “other tactics to improve winter chill, such as using overhead sprinklers to cool the trees and painting them white with liquid clay to reflect sunlight.”

I have used both (in my San Diego County days) sprinkling during warm spells and painting of trunks and major branches to boost chances of production on varieties that are a bit marginal for my area.

Orchard rows on Dec. 19, 2016. Trees in background just pruned. Those in front not yet, at the time. That’s the ultra-vigorous ‘Shaa Kar Pareh’ apricot in front.

Such tactics won’t be necessary for me this winter, however. We have had an exceptionally–by recent standards–chilly winter. At my location, December’s mean low and high temperatures were 36.8 and 54.9F, which is slightly below long-term averages for nearby stations (Davis and Vacaville). By comparison, our monthly means for December, 2015, were 39.4, 55.1; in December, 2014 they were 47.1, 58.0 (!).

This January, so far: 40.8, 52.2. The days have been cool, for sure! And that is much better than January, 2016: 43.9, 55.8; 2015: 39.0, 59.8 (!). Yes, 2014-2015 was pretty bad for the deciduous fruit trees.

My trees should like this winter a lot! Now, if only we can avoid really heavy rain in the bloom period. Given the trend so far this winter–on track for possibly the wettest ever recorded–that is certainly not something I can count on.

‘Spring’ already?

Normally, the first signs of fruit trees getting ready to bloom would be a time of excitement. But when several trees are showing such signs on the 26th of January, it is more a cause of concern.

It would be one thing if the trees are almonds. We just had Tu Bi-Shvat yesterday, after all, and this Jewish ‘New Year for the Trees’ is suppose to be at roughly the time that the almond trees begin blooming in the Land of Israel. And much of California, including this location, has a ‘mediterranean’ climate type, as has Israel. Yet this year we will have a second month of Adar, inserted because Tu Bi-Shvat has come “too early”; the almond trees are not supposed to be in bloom yet, and we need to adjust the calendar to keep Pesach (Passover) in its proper season–the full flowering of spring. I am told by a contact that almonds already are in bloom in Israel. Mine are merely showing the very early signs of readying to bloom. However, several other trees that should flower after the almonds are gearing up. And that is a worrisome sign of a spring coming too early. We still have winter rains to get through–expected to be heavy later this week, and probably in much of February–and the ever-present danger of wintertime frost and freeze, which can wreak havoc on blooms and young fruitlets.

This is the ‘Flavor Delight‘ aprium. Look at all those red buds. It will be blooming soon.

‘Flavor Delight’

‘Flavor Delight’ tends to bloom early, but this is more than a week ahead of last year, when it was actually a warmer winter. This is a variety with an evidently low chilling requirement, so once the weather warms enough, it will bloom early. But this early? (I might have expected that in San Diego, but not this far north.) The first bud swell for this tree in 2015 was 3 February. Its current status is more than just early bud swell. Those are about to burst! A little over a week early may not seem like much, but I would have thought last year’s was early, and yet this year it is even earlier. I suppose we might have to get used to “early” blooming as the new normal, as the climate continues its general warming trend.

All three of my pluots are also showing signs of waking up. I have ‘Flavor King‘, ‘Splash‘ and ‘Flavor Finale‘ varieties. The first two of those began to show some bud swell around 15 February last year, but the whole tree was not showing swell till another week after that. The ‘Flavor Finale’ did not begin to show its very first bud swell last year till 22 February. So these trees are really early! One good thing is that maybe they will all bloom together. My cross-pollination was not good last year, because the ‘Flavor Finale’ did not really get going till the other two were nearly done.

Two pluots shown above. The first one is the ‘Flavor Finale’ and I believe the other one is the ‘Splash’

The pluots also did not have really full blooms last year, partly due to the youth of the trees, but probably mostly because the chill hours (or “chill portions“) in the area were quite low last year (which is an ongoing trend). This winter, December was quite chilly, but January so far has been rather warm. (Data summary below.)

As for the almonds, they have their buds swelling, too. Still, it is striking that they will not be substantially earlier to bloom than some of the fruit trees. Things are just a bit whacky this “spring” so far.

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Our temperatures; look how cold December was in 2013 and how warm it was for the average overnight in 2014! Also how warm January daytime highs were in 2014. This month it has been cloudy most of the time (and raining!), so the the lows have been warmer at the same time as the highs have been cool. In the two prior years, January was essentially cloudless and dry.

Year	Dec. mean low	Dec. mean high	Jan. mean low	Jan. mean high	Feb. mean low	Feb. mean high
2013-14	31.7	59.1	35.9	66.8	44	63.2
2014-15	47.1	58	39	60	44.2	66.5
2015-16	39.5	55.1	43.7	55.1
January 2016 data through the 26th

Snow?

The forecast says the snow level will drop to as low as 2000 feet Saturday evening, locally 1000. We are at 1500.

It has been a really cold week, by local standards, especially for late February.

Too bad all this chill is basically useless for the deciduous fruit trees, coming this late. We surpassed 500 chill hours earlier this month. However, we really won’t get more useful chill, as almost everything is leafing out or blooming by now. And getting snow, or freezing temperatures on the buds and blooms is not a good thing.

But some snow would certainly be interesting…

It rained a bit

Thursday, early in the morning, one of the most incredible storms this region has seen finally moved out. We had 6.25 inches in just over six days, 2.76 of which fell on Wednesday; many areas to the north had a good deal more.

It rained heavily enough for a time on Wednesday that we had a little river running through the property, not to be deterred by fresh prunings off one of the apple trees (which has several varieties that were grafted on to it last spring).

The main event of the rain lasted about 72.5 hours. During that time, only near the end were there as many as five straight half-hour increments (the archive time on my weather data-logger) in which no rain was recorded. At one time on 20-21 December, rain was recorded in 42 consecutive half-hour periods. That was part of a run of 123 of 132 half-hour periods in which rain was recorded. So, it rained rather persistently.

I can recall some phases of rain over a week or so long in the past that were impressive. As recently as January of 2010, for example. And no one who lived in Southern California at the time will forget “epic” rainy periods in 1983 and 1969. But usually these involve a series of discrete heavy storms, punctuated by several hours of some sunshine and no rain. This time, as the stats above reveal, it just kept raining. And raining. There were not even any breaks in the clouds, at least during daylight hours (and the record suggests not at night, either) from Saturday afternoon till Wednesday afternoon.

Today it was sunny and relatively warm (first time over 60 since 14 Dec.). But more rain is forecast for Saturday night and at some point during the coming week.

It’s a bit saturated around here.

We won’t have to irrigate for a while. And, thanks to that cold snap in late November, and more than a week of cool days (albeit fairly warm nights for the time of year) during the rain, we are almost to 250 chill hours already, which is good for the stone fruits.

Enough chill after all?

On this Tu Bi-Shvat, there is much to celebrate as the fruit trees begin a new year. With the very hot January (or perhaps I should say most of Tevet and of Shvat’s first half) I had feared we would be too far behind in chilling accumulation for many of the deciduous fruit trees to bloom adequately.

It is still early spring (and today it feels rather wintry), but the signs are already very encouraging. The Mesch Mesch Amrah plumcot, which is always one of the harbingers of the bloom season, is now covered in blooms. A few blooms are now open on the Flavor Delight Aprium and Minnie Royal cheery. These all have quite low chilling requirements (300 or less?), especially the Minnie Royal, so their blooms are perhaps not especially indicative of significant chilling having been received. However, several moderate-chill (over 400 hours?) varieties are also showing bud swell, including the Autumn Royal apricot (usually a later bloomer), and the Moorpark apricot. Others that have chilling requirements most likely in the 300-400 range are also showing significant bud swell, including Newcastle, Katy, Royal Blenheim, Royal Rosa, and Shaa Kar Pareh (!) apricots and the Flavor King, Flavorosa, and Dapple Dandy pluots, as well as the Flavorella plumcot.

That concentrated chill in the second half of December/Kislev may have produced more chilling hours than I had dared to believe.

All in all, a good way for the trees (and their keeper) to start the new year!

As for Tu Bi-Shvat, with rain having washed out the trail, our shul’s annual ‘walking seder’ for the day was canceled, but the rabbi suggested we all hug a tree and eat dried fruits and nuts for the occasion. And my thought was, for that we need an occasion? Baruch ata Adonai, bo-rei p’ri ha-eitz! Now pardon me while I complete the blessing by enjoying some dried Royal Rosa or Shaa Kar Pareh from last season…

Cold December, Hot January

We are in the midst of a very unusual hot streak. For the seventh straight day here at Ladera Frutal, the high temperature passed 80 degrees (on the quaint Fahrenheit scale). This is quite a contrast with December, which featured seven straight days with a high below 60. I am not sure which 7-day streak would be rarer, but neither could be counted on to occur most winters. To have one such hot and one such “cold” streak in the same winter might just be unprecedented. (The December streak even featured a day when the high was only 49; that’s the only 24-hour period in the six-plus-year history of Ladera Frutal’s weather station to feature a high of less than 50!)

So the weather has been weird. And all this weirdness greatly confuses the fruit trees. There have been a few blooms sporadically on the Earlitreat peach since late December. This is not usually one of our first bloomers–it would usually start in mid-February after a few other peaches–but it always is the first ripener. One year it gave us fruit at the end of April. Maybe this year we’ll have peaches in March!

And I was out picking the sumptuous new crop of Page mandarins and suddenly my nose detected one of the most delightful of all fragrances. Could it be? Yes, there are a few blossoms on the Page! (Citrus usually start blooming after mid-March.)

There is still no sign of bud break on the usual first-bloomers: the Mesch Mesch Amrah plumcot, Newcstle apricot, Flavor Delight aprium, or Tropic Snow peach. (There have been blooms on the Anna apple, but that doesn’t count; that crazy no-chill apple always blooms in December.) But with such warm weather, I’ll be surprised if one of these is not beginning to bloom by the end of next week.

Of course a limiting factor in triggering blooms will be whether chilling requirements have been met. In fact, it is precisely to guard against too-early a bloom, with possible later freeze or frost damage, that deciduous fruit trees evolved their chilling requirements. If they have not had their chill needs met, they will hold off at least a little bit longer. But at some point, if the warmth continues, they’ll break dormancy anyway, but may not flower or fruit well.

Despite the warm spell, the chill count is pretty good, thanks to two factors: (1) that extraordinary cool week in December, and (2) the dry air. When the air is dry and there is no cloud cover, the nights can be chilly even when the days get quite hot. And it is with dry and cloudless nights that the full flowering, so to speak, of Ladera Frutal’s microclimates become apparent.

Up here at LF HQ, at one of the highest locations on the finca, the hottest day reached 89. That night it cooled to 56. Down the slope, at the coldest part, where all but the lowest-chill deciduous fruits are planted, the high was a bit lower, at 87. But the following night it got to 45. Yes, a 42-degree difference from high to low, and an 11-degree difference in low temperatures between the two locations! What a difference 100 or so feet of vertical change over 200 or so feet of horizontal can make! And in the protection of the big old grapefruit trees, the hedgerow (where I cheat on chill) stays cooler still: the hottest day was 83, rather than 87 or 89, and it is almost always 1-3 degrees colder at night. At times, even just shortly after sundown, we experience a 9- to 12-degree difference in temperature between the locations. Following Madison’s “scientific farming” principles, we have planted varieties in locations intended to maximize their microclimatic adaptation.

As a result of these microclimate effects and the dryness, the chill count is not too bad. Of course, it is not as good as the December cold seemed to promise, but it’s decent. By estimate it seems to have peaked around 310-320 at LF HQ, although we have been subtracting 15-22 hours a day during the hottest phase of the warm spell and now are probably under 250. By my understanding of chill models (and they are just models, not empirical descriptions) that means anything that needs 300 hours to bloom well would be OK, but anything requiring 400 would now need an additional 150, rather than 80-90 before it would be satisfied. Of course, anticipating that this part of the finca might often get under 300 chill hours, I have planted only low-chill varieties up here. (As well as tender subtropicals here and even higher, though that did not work out so well.)

Down in the corralito, at the lowest part of the finca, the chill count is much more impressive. We probably already had 265- 280 by the end of December, and with the impressive cold air drainage down the slope on these dry and cloudless nights, we have had very few significantly negative days. (In fact, at the coldest hedgerow location, none, unless you consider one night of an estimated -.25 chill hours to be “significantly negative.”) Thus down there the trees that are most exposed (to the air mixing of wind and to daytime sunlight) may have had no less than around 350 hours at their peak, while the more protected ones may have had as much as 375 even now (and counting!).

So as long as the heat wave breaks soon and we get even “normal” temperatures for a change, there remain grounds for optimism about the fruit season to come. The forecast calls for only moderate cooling for the next few days, but then a “pattern shift” by the middle of next week. If we are lucky, maybe the rains will return, too.

A blanket of chill

The fog was dense this morning, and is unlikely to break completely before sundown. Viewed from LF HQ, and looking out over our house below, one can just make out a little bit of our driveway and the grapefruit grove. Somewhere just to the right of the palm you can see the corralito. Oh, you can’t? Well, it helps when you know it’s there.

Down at corralito level, the fog is not quite as visible, but the deciduous fruit trees are being treated to a nice chill-containing blanket.

Thanks to the fog, the temperature stayed chilly. It did not even reach 45 till after 10:00 a.m., nor 50 till after noon. That meant many hours of chill accumulation, which should be great for the Shaa Kar Pareh apricot (foreground), and the cherries (back by the fence).

It has been a chilly winter so far, with more than 225 chilling hours accumulated at almost all levels of the finca, thanks in part to an unusually high number of days with lows in the 50s (and one that did not even get that high). And, while normally the chill is significantly less up the hill (due to cold air drainage down the steep slope) this year there is little difference, in part due to some near- or sub-freezing nights at the corralito. When the temperature is in the mid 30s and below, there’s little or no chill accumulation. (Prime temperatures for chill are about 38-45, and anything up to the mid 50s is still weakly positive.)

Late next week it may get rather warm. That will slow down the chill accumulation. But 225 hours is a good total as of the first of January, especially as some warm days at the start of December meant we did not really get started till well into the month. If we get another cold snap or two later in January or early February, 2009 might be another good year for the deciduous fruits.

Don’t tread on my cherry tree!

Our Department of Fruitland Security has tried many things–with mixed success–to keep squirrels and other rodents, as well as birds, from getting the fruit before the humans can harvest and enjoy it. But a snake in the tree could be the most effective yet.

The problem with the snake-in-the-tree solution is, of course, that the snake doesn’t like to hang around in one spot. This one did, however–literally. It got itself caught in the bird netting draped over the cherry tree. To say the least, it was quite a shock for your orchardist as he went to harvest the cherries and was just about to sit down on the ground underneath the tree to untie the netting when he noticed the snake! (And I will admit that snakes give me the willies bad. I’ll put the photo on the inside branch in deference to others with the snake-willies. Click “more” at own risk!)

Spring, 2007

Another in the occasional series at the intersection of agronomy, astronomy, and spirituality…

Today, 21 March, is the first day of spring, with the vernal equinox* having arrived at 00:17 UTC (meaning technically spring began here yesterday afternoon). The following photo was taken at solar noon today from approximately the same point as the “Low noon” photo posted here on the winter solstice.

Because it is mostly cloudy today, unlike the sunny day we had on the winter solstice, the extent of shade cast over or near the hedgerow by the nearby grapefruit trees is not as obvious as I would have liked. Even so, you can see that it is only really dark on the south side (left of the photo) of the trunks of the trees in the hedgerow. With the sun angle at this latitude being 57.6 degrees today, compared to 33.9 degrees on the winter solstice, the greater part of these trees is already out of the shade and will be more so day by day as the trees grow (and, I hope, fruit).

Obviously, from the standpoint of the trees themselves, it has been spring here for a while. The tree in the foreground is the Geo Pride Pluot, days past its peak bloom. Several other trees are well on their way to leafing out and some are done blooming.

The upside of the freeze is that we had a lot of chill. Probably in the 650-700 hour range by the time a warm spell essentially ended chilling accumulation after the first week of March. And, as a result, some varieties that are marginal for the climate due to high chilling needs are blooming.

For instance, the Canadian White Blenheim. This has had some blooms in the past, but only sparingly and after being fully leafed out. I had never seen any stone fruit bloom after being fully leafed before, and the absence of any fruit from this tree’s few blooms in springs past confirmed my suspicion that such behavior indicates non-viable blossoms. As the photo above shows, this year it is blooming before the leaves, as one would expect if its chill requirement had been met. At the center of the photo are two open blooms from one set of buds, and several other buds about to burst. Unusual for an apricot, the flowers have a slight pink blush to them.

Even the Hunza is blooming!

As I have explained before, growing Hunza–and doing so right in the shadows of a large grapefruit tree–is very much an experiment in chill-cheating, and I had low expectations upon planting it. Blooms do not guarantee fruit, but they are a necessary condition, for sure!

Spring is here. And if the vernal equinox has arrived, then Pesach is right around the corner, at the full moon, as perfect for illuminating one’s liberation as the flowers of spring are for reminding us of the opportunities ahead. It is one thing to have freedom; it is another to make good use of it, whether we are talking about religious or political freedom. And, inspired by an orchard in bloom, this is as good a time as any for reflecting upon such gifts and their responsibilities.

On the Hebrew calendar, today is 2 Nisan.** The full moon will be (as always) 15 Nisan, the first day of Pesach. And for Christians (both Eastern and Western, this year***), Easter is the Sunday immediately following, 8 April.

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* Unless, of course, you are in the southern hemisphere, in which case it’s the autumnal equinox, or the first day of fall.

** Meaning that 1 Nisan corresponded with the beginning of spring here–as presumably it should–given that the equinox was actually 20 March in North America, as noted above, and here the equinox was before sunset, meaning it was indeed still 1 Nisan.

*** If someone can explain the rules for calculating the date of Easter used by Orthodox Christians, please enlighten me. If Wikipedia can be trusted, Orthodox Easter will be 27 April in 2008. I believe Eastern Christians use the Julian calendar, but nonetheless, the equinox is the equinox, and this date would be more than a month after the start of spring.

Cold air drainage & freeze/chill update

In a comment earlier in the week, Doug Young noted that at his location in El Cajon (roughly 25 miles southeast of here) there were no freeze/frost problems. He mentions the location is about 1100 feet above sea level. That is much higher than here, where the Ladera Frutal office is about 525 feet elevation, as are the bananas that have been so badly ravaged by our freezing conditions. (Day by day, they continue to look worse than in the photo I posted on 14 January).

Doug notes how he can “feel the cold air draining downhill on a calm night.” I know what he means. That is usually the case here, too. On many a clear, windless winter evening, as I walk down the hill from the office to the house (elevation 450 or so), I can feel the air getting significantly colder as I descend. But not so on the recent evenings when the cold air mass settling overhead.

Compare 6 January, a more typical dry clear winter night, to 14 January, the coldest night of the recent snap. On 6 January, the low temperature down at the lower level (below the house, at maybe 350 feet) was 30 degrees, while up here at the office it got to only 36. Six degrees difference over an elevation change of 175 feet. Yet on 14 January, when the temperature reached 24 at the lower level, it was 27 at the office level. The cold air just was not draining. Instead, it was parked firmly overhead and the differences from elevation to elevation just were not very significant.

The steep slope here normally makes for a near-perfect mix of micro-climates–above-freezing at the top but very chilly down below. But it looks a lot less perfect than it did as of 12 January. This week, it would have been good to have been at 1000 feet (as the highest nearby ridgelines are). As an aside, I wonder how high, under local conditions, one can be and still get the advantage of cold-air drainage. At some point, the “thin air” effect of higher elevation has to take over, and one would be too high for cold-sensitive crops. One can see this effect on some of the hills east and south of here in Valley Center and San Marcos: Avocado groves begin part way up the slope and stop before the top, taking advantage of the parts of the slope that are out of usual freeze range. Of course, there was nothing “usual” about the weather this past week–and the impact on the local ag industry will be devastating.

Every day, more damage appears as the plants’ diminished ability to take in moisture leads to more and more collapse of tender young tissues and browning/yellowing and curling of foliage, even on some trees that appeared unaffected as of two days ago (such as the sapodillas, lychee, and some of the citrus).

On the upside, the cold snap has left the chill-hour estimate down below at 370+ hours, or about 100 hours ahead of where it was at this point a year ago.