I'm in an area known to get late frosts that damage early blooming fruit trees. I am trying to figure out where to plant these trees to minimize frost issues. The recommendations typically would be to buy trees that need more chill hours which I will do, but that only gets you so far. So next advice is to place the trees on North facing slopes (in Northern Hemisphere) to delay the flowering process. Is anyone aware of any scientific results from doing this? The reason I ask, it seems this 'cooler' slope will also accumulate chill hours faster, which is actually the primary limitation to come out of dormancy. So, depending on the climate, you have a race going: the cooler slope accumulates chill faster (potentially ending dormancy) while also having cooler temps which possibly delays budding. I'm aware that many plants either need chill hours or 'force' hours, which is basically hot temps to exit dormancy but I'm hoping this is less complicated.
Second question, wouldn't a better solution be to use an evergreen as shade for your fruit trees in winter (something I could coppice)? The evergreen seems like it would keep the tree warmer at night by trapping warm air and cooler during the day due to shade (-->slower to accumulate chill hours). Once danger of frost is past the evergreen gets coppiced. Maybe someone can give me a better way of looking at this.
Thanks,
Brian
