Cold Temperatures Expected this Weekend

Cold weather is expected for Saturday night. As of now, temperatures are expected to drop below 32F. If the weather is as predicted, temperatures will not drop much below 30F. At this temperature, almond buds, blossoms, and young fruit should be safe. I wrote an entry last year covering this topic as well as frost damage prevention. In brief:

Almond Susceptibility to Frost. 
Generally speaking, the further the tree advances out of dormancy, the more sensitive to frost it becomes. A dormant tree is very tolerant to cold temperatures, while small nutlets are very sensitive to frost damage. At this point of the growing season - petal fall to early nutlet development - temperatures below 26F will cause significant to total loss of the almond crop, while temperatures above 28F will cause minimal damage to the crop. The small difference of 2F makes the difference, and is why frost prevention strategies can be used to reduce crop loss.


Frost damage prevention.
 Growers can manage their soil moisture and ground cover to help reduce frost damage from a radiation frost event.
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