Icicles formed on fruit trees at Gatzke Orchards Saturday after warm water was run through the irrigation system to combat the frosty conditions. (Alan Gatzke/Facebook)

By Liam Verster

Frost Fighting Methods

Gatzke Orchards avoids cold snap damage by forming icicles

Apr 18, 2022 | 11:23 AM

Gatzke Orchards in Lake Country deliberately formed icicles on some trees to help beat the cold snap over the weekend.

Alan Gatzke shared a video on Facebook Saturday showing the icicles on trees in the orchard, sparking concern over growing conditions and product loss.

Speaking with Vernon Matters, the owner of the orchard in Oyama said the different types of fruit trees are in different stages this time of year, with apples still dormant from the winter but apricots, cherries, peaches and nectarines break dormancy earlier and are at risk of cold snaps.

Alan Gatzke said the apricots had already started blooming but then the temperatures dropped to -2.6 degrees Saturday night, requiring immediate ‘frost fighting’ action.

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In order to combat the frost, wind machines were fired up to circulate the air, and warm water was run through their irrigation system, resulting in icicles forming on trees throughout the orchard.

“Water converting phases into ice gives off heat, so when you make ice you’re actually giving off heat (by transmitting energy),” said Gatzke.

“It absorbs heat to melt ice, but to create ice the water gives off its heat. So as long as we leave the irrigation running through the cold period there is a film of water around the blooms and around the trees, and the creation of the ice on the ground, all the heat that was in the water is slowly drifting up through the trees.”

Gatzke noted that the formation of ice can be both risky and beneficial, but in this case it was beneficial, which was reflected in the fact that the ice that formed was clear.

“If the ice, first thing in the morning, has an opaqueness or a cloudiness to it, that means that the temperature got cold enough that the film of water on the outside of the ice that is protecting the tissue froze as well,” said Gatzke.

“If we had turned the irrigation on and then it got a few degrees colder, we would have done damage, but because we stayed within the safe range, and you can see quite clearly that the ice was clear, so that indicates that our technique did not freeze solid to the tissue and that we were good.”

He added that the temperatures recorded over the weekend should have caused some damage to the apricot blooms, but thanks to their work, it seems like they avoided the worst.

“We can go out with an eye piece and a razor and slice open the bloom, so I cut open a number of blooms that were facing upwards in a low region of the tree, and at this point we do not see any damage,” said Gatzke.

The cherries also were at a stage where temperatures below minus four would have wiped them out, and while they did get close to hitting that mark they have avoided any significant losses, though it’s the soft fruit that were really at risk.

“We have some early variety of plums that may have sustained a little damage because they were also at the bloom stage and we didn’t have the luxury to put water everywhere, so some of our early sweet plums might have some damage,” said Gatzke.

“But luckily, in that particular type of fruit, if you get five per cent of the blossoms set into fruit then that’s sufficient for a crop.”

He noted that while they did manage to avoid significant damage over the weekend, there is still a chance that the fruit from the blooms will be compromised, and should there be a hot spell in June those fruits could fall from the trees prematurely.

Gatzke added that it’s unlikely that there would be any damage to the apple trees from the recent cold snap.