# Late Spring Freezes



## KevinL (May 4, 2020)

Hello Everyone!

I've had quite the mild 2020 winter her in Northern Illinois. It was great to have so little winterkill to clear out this year compared to last years brutal temperatures. Unfortunately, in keeping with last yer I'm staring down a night of 29 Degree weather coming up this Friday. My buds on just about everything have just broken (Vidal is still buttoned up, but all of my Minnesota Hybrids are out). Rather than just hoping things don't get damaged this year I'd like to try and be proactive about protecting tender shoots.

I've seen and read that common practice is to run sprinklers and to get everything wet for the duration of the cold temperatures. I've not seen any specifics as far as how long to run them, how wet everything needs to be for this to work. Does anyone else have experience with this and mind sharing any useful tips? Do they need to be continuously getting wet or can I move from one part of the vineyard to the next spraying water as I go? 

Seeing as I've got around 200 vines and a single garden hose I'm not confident that this is going to be worth the effort, but I'll be giving it a try overnight on Friday. Any advice would be appreciated.


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## CTDrew (May 4, 2020)

The idea of using water to avoid a freeze is that the water freezes around the leaf instead of the leaf itself freezing and dying. So then when the water melts the damage to the plant cells is minimized. I have done this on farm crops applying the water at the coldest part of the night early morning via overhead irrigation.


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## sour_grapes (May 4, 2020)

Well, also as water freezes, it gives up a lot of energy ("latent heat of fusion"), which buffers the temperature drop of the leaf (and the surrounding air, not that you care about that).


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## Dennis Griffith (May 5, 2020)

I, too, am watching the weather as it looks like we may get some freezing weather later this week. It will be touch and go here in southern Ohio as the forecast calls for reaching 37 at some point. It usually gets colder at my location than what the forecast calls for.


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## KevinL (May 5, 2020)

Current forecast has me looking at only 3 hours of sub 32 degree weather. The current plan is to have my wife and I patrol the vineyard with a hose and sprayer each and keep things wet for the duration of the freeze. A neighbor is being kind enough to loan us another hose. Sounds like it should work. 

Not that I'm looking forward to spending 3 Am until Sunrise in below freezing temperatures spraying water...


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## Dennis Griffith (May 5, 2020)

I'll have to use my 15 gallon tank sprayer. Wonder if a little left over copper solution will hurt anything?


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## KevinL (May 5, 2020)

I also plan on using my 4 Gallon backpack sprayer. Probably some Mancozeb residue in there, but that's fine by me. Forecast has changed, instead of 3 hours of Sub 32, I'm now looking at 5-6 hours, starting at 1 AM.


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## jenkinsr (May 6, 2020)

I use a sprinkler to protect my vines during a frost. I have a natural spring that gives me enough water to spray my vines. I use a portable pump that draws water from my spring delivering it to one sprinkler head in the center of my vineyard. I have 50 vines one sprinkler in the center seems to cover the entire vineyard. It does work! I have seen ice sickles hanging off of the leaves and everything was fine. I'll have it running tonight. You need to turn it on way before it hits 32 deg. Good Luck


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## Dennis Griffith (May 6, 2020)

I don't know if I'll be able to dodge this bullet. With this unexpected shift in the polar vortex, we are looking at low to mid 20s Friday night into Saturday morning. Don't know if I can protect against that. High 20s, probably, but once below 25 we are looking at a freeze. I suppose the bright spot in that this should be our last taste of winter.


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## jenkinsr (May 7, 2020)

Made It through the first round of frost last night. 28 deg heavy frost. Sprinkler worked great, it looked like Christmas with all the ice sickles hanging from the vines. round two Friday night!


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## Dennis Griffith (May 7, 2020)

Friday night will be tough. It only dropped to 30 here last night. I'm expecting low 20s here Friday night/Saturday morning.


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## sour_grapes (May 7, 2020)

jenkinsr said:


> Made It through the first round of frost last night. 28 deg heavy frost. Sprinkler worked great, it looked like Christmas with all the ice sickles hanging from the vines. round two Friday night!



Nothing to do with this thread. I recall stopping for the night in New Philadelphia not so long ago. You see, I was on the way from where I live (Milwaukee) to visit my ill mother, who was living where I grew up in Philadelphia. I like driving on US highways rather than interstates, and so I thought it would be clever to stay in New Philadelphia for my overnight rest. It was a lovely little town, IIRC.

While writing this note, I was tempted to refer to my hometown of Philly, PA as "old Philadelphia," but then I didn't want any confusion with Amman, Jordan. (Especially since my wife has a collaborator at Philadelphia University there.)


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## Dennis Griffith (May 8, 2020)

Ok, I'm trying something new tonight. I got to thinking that paper is a decent insulator and that I had some scrap brown shipping paper that may work to keep the frost/slight freeze off. Some I've put some on as some vines. As I was running out of the brown paper, it dawned on me that newspaper may work as well, so I grabbed up what newspaper I had and finished most of the vineyard. I only covered the early vines that were beginning to leaf out. Fortunately the Cab Franc runs later and isn't into bud break yet. I didn't get all buds covered, but enough to maybe make a difference.






And then I tried a bubble wrap package (it was in with the scrape paper.




And finally, another use for the sports section.........


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## sour_grapes (May 8, 2020)

Dennis Griffith said:


> Ok, I'm trying something new tonight. I got to thinking that paper is a decent insulator and that I had some scrap brown shipping paper that may work to keep the frost/slight freeze off. Some I've put some on as some vines. As I was running out of the brown paper, it dawned on me that newspaper may work as well, so I grabbed up what newspaper I had and finished most of the vineyard. I only covered the early vines that were beginning to leaf out. Fortunately the Cab Franc runs later and isn't into bud break yet. I didn't get all buds covered, but enough to maybe make a difference.
> 
> And then I tried a bubble wrap package (it was in with the scrape paper.
> And finally, another use for the sports section.........



Good idea!

But, seriously, 2016? That is a long time to keep old papers!


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## Dennis Griffith (May 9, 2020)

Well, I don't read a lot of newspapers. When I do get then for some occasion, I keep them for masking stuff when I paint. And I hit the bottom of the barrel last night to cover the vines that were in heavy bud / leaf. Good thing all the vines didn't need it! It only hit 29 this morning, so we'll see how it worked shortly as I'll need to get the paper off before we get too far into the day.


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## Dennis Griffith (May 9, 2020)

The paper seems to have done the job, but I'll be able to tell better in a couple of days. One note, some of the young leaves did not like the ink on the newspaper. The scrap brown packing paper seems to have been the best choice.


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## ibglowin (May 9, 2020)

Living at altitude (6600ft EL) I have had my share of (late) Spring frost over the years. Since I have about 25 vines it is a manageable amount of (cold hardy) vines to try and protect. I had used beach towels, blankets, quilts, incandescent Xmas lights. all dropped gently over the top wire and held in place with cloths pins. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't. It just depended on how cold it got. if it was 30, it seemed to work. If it was 25, they still got burnt to a crisp.

You should know by this afternoon if it worked. Good luck!


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## jenkinsr (May 9, 2020)




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## jenkinsr (May 9, 2020)

26 deg. We'll see what happens.


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## Dennis Griffith (May 9, 2020)

Good luck. We seem to to stockpile lots of shipping boxes as they await breakdown and recycling. Maybe I'll set a bigger box to the side and keep more of the shipping/packing paper for next spring. It's just too hard to protect against a hard freeze, and I was lucky last night as it did not get as cold as the weather guessers said it would be, but I'll take those extra 4 degrees.


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## KevinL (May 9, 2020)

Well, I botched it. I was planning on firing up the sprinklers 2 hours before the frost, which was scheduled for 1-2 AM. So I took a quick nap and woke up at 11 to find that the cold had come early, and frozen the sprinklers. It dropped 7 degrees between 10:30 and 11 according to the weather report. By the time I thawed the sprinklers and started my misting patrols, I think the damage had been done. I lost about 80% of my primary buds. Fortunately the vines closest to the sprinklers seem to have weathered the cold quite well.

So I can confirm, it does work. I just need to start things as the sun sets. Sunday is supposed to be 32 again. This time I'll be ready to protect what I have left.


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## sour_grapes (May 10, 2020)

Sorry for your troubles. Glad you have a fighting chance at salvaging some of them!


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## jenkinsr (May 14, 2020)

Well it looks like I lost about 25% of active growth. The vines furthest away from sprinkler suffered the most. A lot of buds have not yet opened and may or may not have been damaged. Without the sprinkler running it would have been much worse! It does work but 26 deg is hard to beat.


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## Dennis Griffith (May 14, 2020)

I've lost some, but think I'm in good shape.


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## CTDrew (May 14, 2020)

@jenkinsr You did really well for such a cold night. I bet you'll still end up okay once the temps moderate. It's been a cold spring here in CT too, lots of mid 30s for lows and a few nights right near 32.


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## Dennis Griffith (May 14, 2020)

Well, at least I think we are past freezing. Cool and wet isn't really optimum either. We have some wet warm weather in the making currently as rain just drove me in doors. I have all the new vines in and am waiting to see if I need to replace any (crown galling). I treated all the new vines with Actinovate, which some have said will help with galling even though it's intended as a fungicide inoculant.


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## wood1954 (May 20, 2020)

I was taught to prune twice recently. First prune you leave canes with maybe 10 buds, then when frost danger is over you prune to just a few buds. Supposedly the buds closer to the cordon open up last so if the tips freeze you still have some viable buds.


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## Dennis Griffith (May 21, 2020)

What type of trellis system?


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## jandrew156 (May 21, 2020)

It seems you guys may be luckier than I was... we had some really cold temps here in SW Pa, for 3 nights straight. I think one night it was 27. I wasn't able to do any sprinkler or wrapping... I tried plastic bags in the past and that didn't help at all. I saw your newspaper idea and I wish I would've seen that before the cold and I would've tried it. Right now, all of the buds are brown and dried up but there are a very few that are sprouting in other spots. Doesn't look good unfortunately. Par for the course here in 2020!


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## Skashoon (May 21, 2020)

Your secondary buds may save the day. Same situation here just south of Cincinnati in northern KY. Mother’s Day is the guideline here. I held off transplanting the vines received from AA and NE Vine. Sure glad I did. Brought in my cuttings and put them on the heat mat until the freezing was finished. Got them from Bunchgrapes.com, trying to grow some breeding stock. Now preparing for mildew and Japanese beetles. Recent (and continuing) rains accompanied by rising temps will be challenging to stay ahead of the mildew. Anyone have a source for liquid lime sulfur around here, in hobbyist quantities? Like a quart to 1 gallon? I only need a small amount.


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## Skashoon (May 21, 2020)

Dennis Griffith said:


> I'll have to use my 15 gallon tank sprayer. Wonder if a little left over copper solution will hurt anything?


I wouldn’t spray copper below 50 degrees. It can cause phytotoxicity on new growth. I say this because I have done it and lost around 25% of my leaves. I believe the instruction sheet mentions that on the container. Of course I didn’t read until afterwards, oops! Apologies for not mentioning the sooner, I’ve been a member for about two weeks and have been busy planting and spraying.


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## KevinL (May 21, 2020)

Dennis Griffith said:


> Well, at least I think we are past freezing. Cool and wet isn't really optimum either. We have some wet warm weather in the making currently as rain just drove me in doors.



I'd say we're well out of the woods. Turns out some of my Petite Pearl primary buds were still buttoned up so they're looking good. That with the Itasca I saved should leave me a bigger crop than I had last year, assuming I can keep everything fungus free. Thanks for the help everyone. I certainly will try that newspaper idea next year on the vines that my sprinkler doesn't quite reach. That seems like it'll work really well.


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## Dennis Griffith (May 21, 2020)

Now I just need to get some treatment going for the fungus I know is coming. And the copper was for peach trees, which need to be treated during dormancy to control leave curl. My tank has to do double duty and I have been known to leave a gallon or 2 of copper in when I start a batch for grapes.


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