Frost fans - anyone have experience using them.

[Tyrone]

Well it looks like we may get some bad first tonight. This morning went down to 0.1C, and the coldest looks to be yet to come. It will be a clear, still few nights, under a high pressure zone. Most of my palms are under canopy and will take it OK, but I have some that aren't that protected that may get damaged, such as two trunking Hyophorbe indica, and some Abyssinian bananas. Ive got a large industrial fan that I may hook up in the area and let it blow across the area. Has anyone done this before for their palms? I'm kind of desperate to try anything so I'm going to give it a go tomorrow morning and see what it does. 

[cbmnz]

Looks like a massive high centred on the Australian bight. Some people swear by spraying a vapour guard product as a form of frost protection, have never tried it myself, not sure if would harm plams. A fan should work against a radiation frost just depends how huge an area trying to make a difference to,  and ideally want it to draw warmer air from several metres above the  ground like the  comm growers use helicopters to do,  not just blow air across the cold ground surface. Best of luck.

[Tyrone]

Yeah agree. I can’t pull air from up high but I can pull air from under canopy. Most of my in ground stuff will be ok, but I have one area with Hyophorbe indica and gingers that I want to protect. If I can make some turbulence it may stop frost from forming. Gonna be a rough few nights I reckon. 

I need to pray for clouds to return. 

[Tyrone]

Will probably turn them on around 4C.

[Tyrone]

13 hours ago, cbmnz said:

Looks like a massive high centred on the Australian bight. Some people swear by spraying a vapour guard product as a form of frost protection, have never tried it myself, not sure if would harm plams. A fan should work against a radiation frost just depends how huge an area trying to make a difference to,  and ideally want it to draw warmer air from several metres above the  ground like the  comm growers use helicopters to do,  not just blow air across the cold ground surface. Best of luck.

I took your good advice on board and decided to create my own warm air to distribute. It worked a treat but the cold only went down to negative 0.5C. I was expecting neg 2C. Two more possibly colder nights to come.

I’ve got an outside gas heater to organise and setup today for some extra fire power. 

[cbmnz]

4 hours ago, Tyrone said:

I took your good advice on board and decided to create my own warm air to distribute. It worked a treat but the cold only went down to negative 0.5C. I was expecting neg 2C. Two more possibly colder nights to come.

I’ve got an outside gas heater to organise and setup today for some extra fire power. 

Yeah, that was a good idea, fire to create the warmer air and fan to draw it in and blow over the target instead of it just convecting straight up and being lost.

[Tyrone]

I think tonight is gonna be a bad one. Virtually everything inland and south of Perth is on some sort of frost watch tonight. Given that there are more locations on alert I think it may get bad. The BOM is really conservative in its predictions of cold down here. At least I’ve now got a gas heater ready to go now in my war against frost. A bit more fire power. 

[GottmitAlex]

I only employed lamps trained between the soil and the meristem of the palms. But it's useless for frost. We never get frost here.  We do get hail though. Still useless against it except for the soil.

 

What you're doing sounds like it works! Great job

[Tyrone]

I was right that it was going to get colder. We had a minimum of neg 1.2C. Below zero from 4am to 8am. My barrage of warmth definitely stopped the frost in the area I’m protecting. Further away even under light canopy I had light frost. In the protected area  nothing really. 

One unexpected thing though. My 9kg gas bottle froze up completely which slowed the passage of gas to the heater and basically turned it way down. I have a plan for that though. 

Round 3 is tonight before, thankfully, cloud wind and rain, with night time warmth (comparatively speaking) will return. 

[Tyrone]

It got colder again with a neg 1.8C. The heaters and fans at that temp didn't completely eliminate the frost but greatly alleviated it. We will see what the outcome will be. In other areas under canopy I had light frost but the species under there can handle it. 3 nights of frost back to back. We never get it like that normally. If we do get frost, the very next night is much milder. I suppose that's what happens when you go a winter without frost. Previous to this the last frost was a single neg 2.5C morning on July 12, 2020. 

I'm going to have to reassess what I'm growing here and how I can create more canopy. Probably going to reduce marginals and become a "safe" palm gardener.