This volume reviews concepts of probability and risk of frost damage and uses that information to help readers make economic decisions about frost protection. Computer application programs are included with the book to help simplify complex calculations. The TempRisk.xls application computes the probability of temperature falling below critical temperatures and then, determines the certainty that such an event will happen at least once over a defined number of years. This application is useful to determine the probability and risk of frost damage occurring when the damage sensitivity is fixed during the period of interest. The FriskS.xls application calculates probability that a particular date will experience the last frost in the spring, the first frost in the autumn and the length of the growing season between the spring and autumn dates. The FriskS.xls application is useful to help people decide the physical risk of early planting or late harvest of field and row crops.
The DEST.xls application program is used to compute the risk of frost damage specific to a tree or vine crop that has changing sensitivity to frost during critical phenological stages. The program uses climate data and critical temperatures associated with 90 percent (T90) and 10 percent (T10) damage, which are input corresponding to specific phenological dates. It analyses the data between the first and last dates with sensitive phenological stages and produces tables of (1) yearly percentage frost damage for an unprotected crop and for 11 protection methods, (2) yearly yield for the unprotected crop and the 11 protection methods, (3) means and standard deviations of percentage fruit losses and crop yields and damages over years of record and (4) the mean and standard deviation of the number of frost events and the duration of the frost events.
Finally, the FrostEcon.xls program is provided to help users determine the economic risk of frost damage protection as well as the cost-effectiveness of various methods of frost protection. This is an elaborate program that combines probability and risk with cost and revenue information on various protection methods to determine which if any frost protection method should be adopted. The text contains illustrative examples and the FrostEcon.xls application will help growers and consultants to make wise decisions when considering the adoption of frost protection.
