(this is worse)
crop candles
Submitted 17 hours ago by fossilesque@mander.xyz to science_memes@mander.xyz
https://mander.xyz/pictrs/image/f588ac12-39cf-475a-a2fb-7efe20165121.png
Comments
Gladaed@feddit.org 17 hours ago
whyNotSquirrel@sh.itjust.works 17 hours ago
fighting climate change by burning petroleum! Yay
CucumberFetish@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 hours ago
They are fighting not only the symptoms, but also the root cause
starlinguk@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
This is only done when there’s an unexpected frost in spring or summer when the poly tunnels have been taken away.
Ephera@lemmy.ml 10 hours ago
A while ago, I saw a documentary where they had a big-ass fan on an apple orchard, which they would turn on early in the morning.
The problem is that when it cools down in the night, it can dip below freezing temperatures, which would damage the blossoms, if it stays that low for too long. And the cold air gets trapped between the apple trees, so just creating some artificial wind is apparently a pretty good solution to untrap it and therefore allow things to warm back up as soon as the sun hits.
Just found it interesting that this is a common enough problem, without requiring more drastic solutions like actual heating, so that they came up with this idea.
The documentary is in German, but you can see it at 5:00 here: ardmediathek.de/…/Y3JpZDovL3dkci5kZS9CZWl0cmFnLXN…
Scafir@discuss.tchncs.de 8 hours ago
Turns out that this is common in Japan for tea fields. They mount big fans on poles all accross the field for it (you provably have to zoom in to see them)
scratchee@feddit.uk 8 hours ago
I admit that when you said “big fan” I imagined a wind turbine in reverse.
Zooming into the picture, I see it’s more like desk fans on sticks. I’m sure they’re bigger than that really, but is it really too much to ask for a windmill that does work that way?
bleistift2@sopuli.xyz 14 hours ago
In Germany frost is combated by spraying vines with mist. Freezing water releases heat, which raises the temperature by a few degrees.
starlinguk@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
In one of the Laura Ingalls books they run around pouring water on top of their crop early in the morning when it turns out it’s frozen. It seems to be an old method.
pineapplelover@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 hours ago
Fascinating
glitchdx@lemmy.world 15 hours ago
don’t you only see these being used when other preferable infrastructure has already failed, and it’s like, an emergency or something?
Lemmyoutofhere@lemmy.ca 14 hours ago
That’s exactly why this is done. It’s an emergency operation if there is a sudden freeze that would kill the vines.
Andrzej3K@hexbear.net 17 hours ago
It works in Minecraft
Electricd@lemmybefree.net 4 hours ago
Seems to be worse ecologically
Mubelotix@jlai.lu 1 hour ago
It’s actually not. We have entire regions covered with vines. We can’t wrap the whole France in plastic, it’s just not possible. But we can predict where it’s going to freeze and when, so we take such measures on very specific zones with precise timings. So this only happens a few times a year, at precise locations and not for long