For fruit growers, the consequences of the night frost in the night from Saturday to Sunday are not yet clear. According to Ron Mulders, chairman of the Dutch Fruit Growers Organization (NFO), it will become clear in the coming days whether the frost has caused damage to the harvest.
According to Mulders, many fruit growers have made preparations in the run-up to night frost by irrigation, a method that prevents night frost from damaging the blossoms of fruit trees.
Not everywhere
When ice is formed, heat is released, keeping the temperature around the freezing point. However, irrigation is not possible everywhere. In any case, this concerns a number of plots in South Limburg and Zeeland, but it may also not have been irrigated in other places in the Netherlands.
Also read: Fruit growers irrigate blossoms against night frost
braziers
Cold temperatures can be very detrimental to the fruiting of apple, pear and cherry trees and can therefore be detrimental to yields. Growers can intervene where necessary by, for example, watering the orchard or lighting braziers, so that the temperature rises. This is the case, for example, with cherry trees that cannot withstand irrigation. In addition, sometimes windmills are used to blow warm air through the rows of trees, for example in orchards where there is not enough water available.
Last year night frost caused significant damage. The harvest of pears, for example, was barely a fifth lower due to the cold spring in Europe.
Meteo Limburg expects frost on the ground in the night from Sunday to Monday. After that, temperatures will remain above zero, although it will remain cool for the next few days.
Read the detailed weather forecast 1limburg.nl/weer