Frost Protection

Frosts affect agricultural production reducing yields and/or product quality. The best strategy to avoid frost damage is to use passive (preventive) methods, which imply a good choice of species, cultivars, planting dates, and locations, keeping the soil compacted, wet, and smooth, among other options. This requires the knowledge of the frequency distributions of minimum temperatures and the evaluation of the effect of low temperatures on crop performance (i.e., critical damage temperatures). However, the mechanisms of frost damage are rather complex and depend partly on plant hardiness, so damage predictions are very uncertain. When frost occurs, active (protective) methods minimize the damage by reducing longwave radiation loss (e.g., plastic covers), direct heating by burning fuel, air mixing (e.g., wind machines), and overhead irrigation for releasing the heat of fusion.