Frost Damage

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 79, 20 April 1937, Page 4

Frost Damage

i — Own Correspondent.)

PREVENTION IN ORCHARDS N-Z. Instructor To Inquire in America HOW FIRE-POT WORKS

(By' Telegrapb

AUCKLAND, Last Night. The gradually changing seasons and frosts are causing so much damage to fruit and loss ta grow. ers that the Government has instructed Mr W. E. Lloyd Williams, orchaifd instructor in Central Otago. to leave hy the Aorangi for the Westem States of America and xxtvestigate the anti.frost systems there. Fire-pots, known in America as "smudges," are employed in a few New Zealand fruitgrowing areas, but Mr Wililams seeks ian alternative method and hopes to be able to introduee it before next spring. In Amcrt ja, said Mr Williams, the use of fire-pots is part of the orchard praetice. rio anticipates that the universal adoption of some protective system in Now Zea. land would save the country .mick loss frnm frost-bitten fruit.

In recent years, explalned Mr. Williams, there had been a noticeable increase of frost in the spring in a#l paTts of the Dominion, especially in Hawke's Bay and Central Otago, and the losses were heavy. Eecetatly- a deputation from Alexandra and Clyde, Central Otago, suggested that the Government should extend to growers' timepayment conditions for the purchase of frost-fighting equipment and that Mr. Williams should be sent to America to study the various systems there. It would cost about £35' an acre a year, original cost, to combat frosts in New Zealand by the fire-pot method and the cost of burning crude oil was about £22 an acre an hour. "This expense often meant a dift'erence between a crop or no crop," said Mr. Williams. "A heavy frost about 10 years ago wiped out practically all the orchard erops and prompted the Government to conduct experiments along the lines of the accepted American practiee. Since then a small percentage of orchardists have .burned crude oil in iron pots, which hold about five quarts, the burning rate being about a quart an hour. "In the big frosts of 1933 only growers who used fire-pots had any fruit, and last spring there were some remarkable results. "When frost threatens, growers have to rise between 2 a.m. and sunrise and they are awakened by the ringing of an alarm gong actuated hy falling mercury in a tall thermometer. Two wires are fused into a glass tube, one at 32 degrees and the other lower. They are eonnected by batteries to a bell, which rings in the grower 's bedroom when the temperature drops below 32 degrees. He rushes to the orchard and lights crude oil in fire-pots in differeut parts of the orchard. The heat raises the temperature around the trees and prevents the ruin of promising crops of fruit." _ To ascertain if this is the best method is the object of Mr. William 's visit to the United States.