Jump to content
IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT ABOUT LOGGING IN ×
  • WELCOME GUEST

    It looks as if you are viewing PalmTalk as an unregistered Guest.

    Please consider registering so as to take better advantage of our vast knowledge base and friendly community.  By registering you will gain access to many features - among them are our powerful Search feature, the ability to Private Message other Users, and be able to post and/or answer questions from all over the world. It is completely free, no “catches,” and you will have complete control over how you wish to use this site.

    PalmTalk is sponsored by the International Palm Society. - an organization dedicated to learning everything about and enjoying palm trees (and their companion plants) while conserving endangered palm species and habitat worldwide. Please take the time to know us all better and register.

    guest Renda04.jpg

Engineers of PalmTalk


LouisvillePalmer

Recommended Posts

Their(pueblo) ancestors(Anasazi) had the soltice down to the minute over a thousand years ago.  Using sundials.

Probably to help with the success of crops. Just a hunch on my part. 

Or maybe they were into palms?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

21 minutes ago, jwitt said:

 

Got to be open minded here. No enclosures. 

Not needed. 

That also ensures no cooking on warm days.

We are talking a trachy in Louisville, not a coconut.

 

 

 

You’re referring to using microclimates or compost heat then maybe?  

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think we can incorporate some past knowledge into today's knowledge.

On the cheap.

Without an enclosure.

And gain 1-2 zones.

Speaking Louisville, I'm thinking something that would emulate an 8a climate and a trachy.  Occasional leaf damage(some years) and possible defoliation (very rare) but not death.  

That's what happens in an 8a, even 8b.

Just wanna be clear here......

One consideration is it really cannot be shaded 

Not that you would want to attempt a trachy in Louisville in the shade.

 

 

 

 

Edited by jwitt
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, teddytn said:

You’re referring to using microclimates or compost heat then maybe?  

Neither unless siting for wind.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 minutes ago, jwitt said:

Neither unless siting for wind.

I’m guessing this all ties in with your washie thread. Would you be so kind to enlighten all of us with your ancient plant knowledge?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, teddytn said:

I’m guessing this all ties in with your washie thread. Would you be so kind to enlighten all of us with your ancient plant knowledge?

Not at all. I only incorporate exactly what the local cotton growing natives did for my palms.  Time tested and proven. 

The original poster needed more....

So that would not work.

My other post is about a miracle(make that of it what you may).

I could say why don't you do what they did  here(the first vineyards North America) to combat the cold. They buried the vines under 5 foot mounds of soil. Two miles from where I type. 

There, now you know and are enlightened. 

 

Most of my plant knowledge is hard knocks.

 

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

53 minutes ago, jwitt said:

Not at all. I only incorporate exactly what the local cotton growing natives did for my palms.  Time tested and proven. 

The original poster needed more....

So that would not work.

My other post is about a miracle(make that of it what you may).

I could say why don't you do what they did  here(the first vineyards North America) to combat the cold. They buried the vines under 5 foot mounds of soil. Two miles from where I type. 

There, now you know and are enlightened. 

 

Most of my plant knowledge is hard knocks.

 

 

 

 

I wasn’t attempting to be snarky, sorry if it came off that way. I genuinely like to talk about plants with people on here. Same here I’ve learned by trial and error, hard knocks and hurt feelings lol.
Ok I’ll wait for the other thread to develop. 

I’ve heard about burying the vines before I believe on PT…makes sense to me for a bunch of reasons. Sabal minors have super deep root systems and underground “trunk”. Most mature palms have fairly deep root systems and part of the reason hardiness ratings are based on mature established specimens not newly planted juvenile palms. That’s the basis of geothermal is using the semi constant year round  temperature (however deep…8 feet at least I believe) underground to regulate above ground temps. Been on a few cave excursions here in TN, KY. Temps in the caves stay constant 55-60f year round. I personally always bury tomato plants double deep. 
Only problem I see is burying a palms trunk that deep may lead to rot and putting the root system that far down would limit air to the root system…..I think there was a guy that tried burying a 20 foot coconut palm 10 feet deep in the ground and posted about it on here. 
Worth an experiment for sure though. Maybe test 4 palms, 2 buried deep and 2 at normal planting depth. Track the results. Maybe plant the root system in soil and fill the rest of the desired depth with gravel perhaps to prevent trunk rot? 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 4/8/2022 at 2:08 PM, Palmlex said:

Yeah, it's not very difficult to wrap them in something that generates heat, but ideally I would like to have a "self sustaining" enclosure that needs no power input from me. I'm not talking about solar panels here, because those would likely not work.

What I've done this past winter is a rudimentary variant of the solar water heater idea.  And it did work, but the winter was pretty mild with a low of only around -9C/16F. My Washingtonia Robusta and Phoenix Canariensis look like they never even gone through a winter. Not even leaf spotting. What I've done was insulate them hardcore, so with 4'' thick expanded polystyrene sheets (extruded polystyrene like styrofoam is way more expensive and I could only find 2'' thick) on 4 sides and a clear polycarbonate sheet on the southern side. Then I placed around 28 gallons of water in jugs around each of the palms. I didn't have any black jugs, so I just put them in black plastic bags. I figure black jugs would absorb the sun's radiation better than mine, so that could be an improvement for next winter. The more water the better, but I just used the jugs that I had.

With this setup, the temperature inside the enclosures never dropped below 0.6C/33F and that was after a cloudy day. The greatest temperature difference I've measured (I couldn't measure the absolute low...) was one morning when outside was -8C/17F and in the palm enclosures it was 1.5C/35F. The sunniest it is during the day, the more heat will be released during the night, that will keep temperatures higher. I basically had an 8b winter, but the palms felt a 10a winter.

This required no heat input from me. Obviously, this solution has drawbacks. One is that it can't handle infinite cold or long periods of overcast skies. I'd say -15C/5F outside is probably close to the limit for these 2 palms. It's also more expensive and difficult to build. The other disadvantage is that you need to make sure to leave an air gap in warmer spells, because during the day your palms could probably cook. One very sunny day they were completely sealed and I've measured close to 43C/110F inside. They didn't seem to mind that temperature at all though. They even opened a frond while in there.

Advantages? Well, no power bill, no cords ran around the yard; it could, in theory, be as far from the house as you want, no worrying about power outages, devices malfunctioning or rodents chewing on wires.

So what I gleam here is insulation is important and water is one of the best ways of heating as it absorbs during the day and radiates at night.

 

Brainstorming here... look at the image below. If you had a large version of this Tervis, but you had water in between the two plastic pieces.. you could have an insulated water enclosure that could go up the whole length of the tree. You could design them in 1 ft increments to add as the tree gets taller? Kind of like legos.. but its hollow in the middle (for the tree) and has water inside of it.

Tervis Made in USA Double Walled Clear & Colorful Tabletop Insulated Tumbler Cup Keeps Drinks Cold & Hot, 24oz - 2pk, Clear

 

Edit: Here is a very.. very.. very rough drawing of me on a ladder placing the Lego-Like blocks. The top view shows how they would connect.

1286251721_IMG_9257(002).thumb.jpg.9997c3d03eedfee208f82326924806e9.jpg

Edited by LouisvillePalmer
  • Like 3

~ I'd rather be on the beach ~

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, LouisvillePalmer said:

So what I gleam here is insulation is important and water is one of the best ways of heating as it absorbs during the day and radiates at night.

 

Brainstorming here... look at the image below. If you had a large version of this Tervis, but you had water in between the two plastic pieces.. you could have an insulated water enclosure that could go up the whole length of the tree. You could design them in 1 ft increments to add as the tree gets taller? Kind of like legos.. but its hollow in the middle (for the tree) and has water inside of it.

Edit: Here is a very.. very.. very rough drawing of me on a ladder placing the Lego-Like blocks. The top view shows how they would connect.

1286251721_IMG_9257(002).thumb.jpg.9997c3d03eedfee208f82326924806e9.jpg

Most healthy palms (Trachycarpus) have fronds running up a huge length of the trunk and do not look like your drawing.  Also the most important part to protect is the crown area and in your case possibly keeping it dry.

 

Here is mine from today

palm trunk3.jpg

Edited by Allen

YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@tntropics - 60+ In-ground 7A palms - (Sabal) minor(7 large + 27 seedling size, 3 dwarf),  brazoria(1) , birmingham(4), etonia (1) louisiana(5), palmetto (1), riverside (1),  (Trachycarpus) fortunei(7), wagnerianus(1),  Rhapidophyllum hystrix(7),  15' Mule-Butia x Syagrus(1),  Blue Butia capitata(1) +Tons of tropical plants.  Recent Yearly Lows -1F, 12F, 11F, 18F, 16F, 3F, 3F, 6F, 3F, 1F, 16F, 17F, 6F, 8F

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 hours ago, LouisvillePalmer said:

So what I gleam here is insulation is important and water is one of the best ways of heating as it absorbs during the day and radiates at night.

 

Brainstorming here... look at the image below. If you had a large version of this Tervis, but you had water in between the two plastic pieces.. you could have an insulated water enclosure that could go up the whole length of the tree. You could design them in 1 ft increments to add as the tree gets taller? Kind of like legos.. but its hollow in the middle (for the tree) and has water inside of it.

Tervis Made in USA Double Walled Clear & Colorful Tabletop Insulated Tumbler Cup Keeps Drinks Cold & Hot, 24oz - 2pk, Clear

 

Edit: Here is a very.. very.. very rough drawing of me on a ladder placing the Lego-Like blocks. The top view shows how they would connect.

1286251721_IMG_9257(002).thumb.jpg.9997c3d03eedfee208f82326924806e9.jpg

 

I don't really see how these water blocks would be possible. Even if they are possible, they might not provide enough insulation or latent heat. An easier way to do this, albeit just as ineffective would be to build the enclosure out of bricks (you could maybe paint them black if you wanted to absorb more radiation).

Regular brick has about 1/4th of the heat capacity of water, but double the density, so for the same volume of brick as of water, the brick could store around half the heat as the water would. The easy fix here would be to double the volume of brick (like getting thicker brick). Then again, only the outer layer of the brick would be hit by the sun, so thermal conductivity compared to water is a different issue that I can't say anything about.

Thinking about a brick enclosure, you could make a reasonable analogy with an unheated building. Unheated buildings are generally not much above ambient temperature...

A huge issue of this idea is that if the building blocks absorb any heat, they'll release some of it inside towards the palm, but most of it towards the environment. Another issue is that if wind gets through the cracks, your insulation does nothing.

For something like this to work, there needs to be a way to trap the sun's heat inside a very well insulated enclosure. Pretty much like the water jugs idea I've mentioned in an earlier post.

TLDR: Building an enclosure around the palm that is never heated would behave like an unheated building and would likely not work.

Edited by Palmlex
  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Brainstorming is good. I’m glad for threads like this. I think Edison said he only got credit for the 1 he figured out how to do something right, but nothing for the 10,000 ways he learned to do something wrong. Don’t quote me on that lol. @LouisvillePalmer good on ya for experimenting and being creative :greenthumb:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You could do it but the size and number of the panels needed along with the storage requirements (batteries) would be significant.   A greenhouse is the most efficient way.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think you guys may be misinterpreting latent heat.  

Latent heat is the heat stored or released during the change of state. Like liquid(water) to solid(ice) or vice versa.  There is the same energy in going from 32f water to 32f ice as going from 176f water to 32f water!

 

Latent heat is a big deal when talking temperatures below 15f. Like a battery. A bank of stored energy(heat.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If you want to keep things moderately warm, but not hot, then a circulating system of water might work.  Bury a giant retention tank a few feet down in the ground and take advantage of the geothermal aspect.  Run a basic pump that is just big enough to circulate water from the tank up into your enclosure.  It'll only take a few watts to run a pump continuously during the night, it's not like you are running a 1hp pool pump at 50gpm.  Maybe more like 1gpm or so would keep enough water circulating through hoses to prevent freezing.  You can get a pump like that for about $35 and it'll run about 2.5A at 12V = 30W.  Running it at night would be 0.25kWh per night or about $0.03 per night at FL power rates.  The big expense would be setting up the system deep enough to keep moderate reserve tank temperatures.

Personally I think without an enclosure there's no chance to push 2 or more zones.  Even if you could keep the trunk alive, it's not going to survive weeks and months with all the fronds burnt off in November.  You can get powered attic shutters and put them on a temperature-controlled switch. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 months later...
On 4/14/2022 at 2:27 PM, LouisvillePalmer said:

So what I gleam here is insulation is important and water is one of the best ways of heating as it absorbs during the day and radiates at night.

 

Brainstorming here... look at the image below. If you had a large version of this Tervis, but you had water in between the two plastic pieces.. you could have an insulated water enclosure that could go up the whole length of the tree. You could design them in 1 ft increments to add as the tree gets taller? Kind of like legos.. but its hollow in the middle (for the tree) and has water inside of it.

Tervis Made in USA Double Walled Clear & Colorful Tabletop Insulated Tumbler Cup Keeps Drinks Cold & Hot, 24oz - 2pk, Clear

 

Edit: Here is a very.. very.. very rough drawing of me on a ladder placing the Lego-Like blocks. The top view shows how they would connect.

1286251721_IMG_9257(002).thumb.jpg.9997c3d03eedfee208f82326924806e9.jpg

I think you pick up on some good points. Personally,  water over bricks in my mind like you stated.  We want btu's, not density, as btu's is the energy. We just have to have a way to transfer the energy.

I think it can be done passively(no pumps, electricity, or enclosures). 

What you have shown is basically a wall of water on steroids.  Wall of waters have proven success with palms.

I am thinking of somewhat of an "enhanced" wall of water(minus the wall).  Using solar and natural airflow.

For Louisville.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 4/7/2022 at 11:25 AM, LouisvillePalmer said:

Yes, lets hear it! I am in zone 6B, and just being able to push to zone 8A would be perfect as I could grow Trachycarpus Fortunei and Sabal Palmetto!

I'm thinking a 7b and a trachy. 

What are palmetto leaf hardy temperatures?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now



  • Recently Browsing

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...