Chill Hours

[cutman]

My peach trees require about 400 chill hours per year, if I remember correctly. We've had a warm winter thus far, so I sought out a reference that kept track of things like that.

Thought others might benefit from this site I found:

http://www.getchill.net/

I'm at 284 chill hours for the season. Hope we have another cold spell or two!

 

[Buckly]

We only get 4000 chill hours a year up here.

 

[dogdoc]

Don't want those chill hours too quick though as you don't want that peach tree coming out of dormancy too soon if you get a very early spring.
I've read somewhere that when temps are above 60 degrees during the dormancy period then that time is subtracted from the chill hours?

 

[Maya]

Don't want those chill hours too quick though as you don't want that peach tree coming out of dormancy too soon if you get a very early spring.
I've read somewhere that when temps are above 60 degrees during the dormancy period then that time is subtracted from the chill hours?

Dogdoc, I was at a seminar a couple years ago. This big orchard was having trouble with poor/ lack of blossoms for 2-3 years. UNH invited orchard managers and several university experts in entomology, plant pathologists, etc. to see if they could figure out what was going on.

Even though the experts were not certain as to the exact reason for the problem, one thing they mentioned and spent considerable time on was that the November before we had a good cooling period followed by an extremely warm temps for a few days. They said this can harm fruit buds every bit as much as a cold snap in the spring.