It hasn’t been cold enough yet this year so I had to go back about 18 month when the fruit trees had already started to flower and a cold snap was on the way. The way to protect the blooms is to put on the sprinklers and make the forming ice protect the leaves and shoots.
Here is a post from then with more photos: Ice, Ice, Baby
The cryogenic temperature range has been defined as from −150° C to absolute zero. The (successful) attempt to rescue the harvest of these espalier apples by spraying with water and having the ice protect the blossoms wasn’t quite that cold. But it looked cryogenic!!
This is another photo of the cold morning after the cold night we had last week, threatening the new blooms on the espaliered trees in the orchard. The clouds are, I think, cirrocumulus floccus (meaning “look of wool”).
I drove past one of the orchards in the area yesterday morning and was greeted with winter wonderland. We had bright, freezing cold nights these past days and the fruit growers used frost protection irrigation to protect the shoots and blooms on the apple and peach trees.
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pictures imperfect blog 