Abstract
This paper demonstrates the use of climatological data and published information to develop a thaw-freeze/freeze-kill indicator for fruit trees during flowering. In fruit-producing regions, when budding and flowering occur before the last spring freeze, a freeze-kill event can cause substantial losses. As spring onset is occurring earlier with climate change, thaw-freeze events have the potential to become more of a hazard both in terms of current production and in terms of potential adaptation strategies. To model the spring thaw-freeze and its magnitude or intensity, we proposed an indicator based on the accumulation of daily minimum temperature between successive freezing dates and its maximum value over the spring. This indicator was tested on apple and peach production in southern Ontario, Canada, using data from eight climate stations in southern Ontario. The indicator showed promise in its utility in that its magnitude was greater when freezing occurred after blooming and it was demonstrated to be correlated to the estimated blooming dates of apple and peach fruits grown in southern Ontario. The annual series was shown to fit the generalized extreme value distribution thereby allowing the extreme risk to be modelled and the return period to be calculated. It was also shown that the reported thaw-freeze events that caused significant apple and peach losses had a return period on the order of 10 years.
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Data availability
All data are publicly accessible and methods of analysis and software are described in the manuscript.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Dr. Eike Luedeling of the Institute of Crop Sciences and Resource Conservation, University of Bonn, Germany, for his personal attention in modifying his plant phenology model chillR for this study.
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Both authors, S. Kaharabata and R. Desjardins contributed to the body of work presented. Conceptualization of the work was done by both authors. Data collection and analysis were performed by S. Kaharabata. The first draft of the manuscript was written by S. Kaharabata and subsequent revisions made by R. Desjardins and S. Kaharabata. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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The authors declare that they have no competing interests. The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare that are relevant to the content of this article. Partial financial support was received from the Sustainability Metric Project of the Science and Technology Branch of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.
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R packages noted in the manuscript were used to analyse data and then further explored and visualized using Excel.
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Kaharabata, S., Desjardins, R.L. An indicator of freeze-kill damages to fruit trees during flowering. Int J Biometeorol 65, 813–825 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00484-020-02055-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00484-020-02055-z