Hi Mark,

it's a little trickier than that. It gets plenty hot in the mountains of the Rockies and Cascades *during the day.* The difference is that despite how hot it gets during the day, it nearly always cools down into the 50s at night. In addition, there's always very low relative humidity.

I believe that's the key to the long-term success of Abies lasiocarpa and procera.

~Dave

I have Abies procera `Sherwoodii' on firma from Camellia Forest so surely it must do ok in Raleigh NC. Mine seems to be doing fine right now but it is really little so time will tell. We are hotter than Raleigh so it is an experiment of course.

Depends on the source, or provenance, of the trees. The southernmost population of Abies lasiocarpa var. arizonica occurs on Mount Lemmon Arizona, Santa Catalina Mountains, right above Tucson, Arizona. As you can see from the attached screenshot, Mt. Lemmon has had 100+ degree highs nearly every single day for the entire first half of June, 2013, with nighttime lows in the mid to upper 70s. You can bet that seedlings derived from those Abies lasiocarpa trees will do just fine with heat.

{{gwi:743543}}

Some may say they can tolerate dry heat but not humid heat. Actually, Mount Lemmon experiences both dry heat and wet heat due to the monsoon season, which starts in mid July. So if you want a heat-tolerant Abies lasiocarpa, take a seed or graft collection trip up Mount Lemmon, which is actually easy since there's a highway that goes right to the summit.

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:743543}}

This post was edited by bluecone on Tue, Jun 18, 13 at 21:44

May try one then. Everyone has heard the troubles here in Oklahoma this last few years with 100 degree days, 95 degree nights and 70% humidity. It's a tough combination. But I thought I might try this tree as an experiment to my typical blue spruce.

Thanks for the input.

mark

Typically, heat tolerance or lack of is related more to nighttime temps than days.

Bluecone, that is great information.

In contrast, here is weather for Alma, Colorado (example A. lasiocarpa native range).

Bluecone, I think the data is for a lower elevation- maybe closer to Tucson. The NWS, Weatherbase and World Climate are showing much cooler temps. I don't know, however, how low they grow something tells me not very low. That screenshot is weather.com- they aren't always very accurate with location I've noticed.

Here is a link that might be useful: Weatherbase

This post was edited by fairfield8619 on Wed, Jun 19, 13 at 11:27

fairfield8619, I think the weather station that your Weatherbase link points to is the same as the one I posted from weather.com. Weatherbase says the station is at an elevation of 7,960 ft, which is indeed lower than the peak (9,157 ft) but still far from Tucson (2,389 ft). So, the difference in elevation between the station and the peak is 1,197 ft.
{{gwi:743545}}
Weatherbase says the average high at the station in June is 76.6 F, but reports 100 F today. Given that the average temperature decrease per 1,000 ft is ~3.5 F (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lapse_rate), the temperature at the peak probably reached 96 F today and on all the previous days this June.

It could be a 19-day-long freak heat wave, but then it just goes to show that the trees there have adapted to withstand such waves.

I agree that if you want the absolute most heat resistant Abies lasiocarpa var. arizonica, you'd want to collect seeds from the lowest elevation individual tree you find on Mount Lemmon.

Try putting in Tucson and then Mount Lemmon- right now it is the same readings. They are using the stats from Tucson. Something told me that even in AZ mountains it would be unlikely to be so warm. Possible I guess but unlikely. Maybe the station is not functioning right now but the averages are showing something different. Intellicast is doing likewise.

This post was edited by fairfield8619 on Thu, Jun 20, 13 at 0:40

It's the same tonight- they're using Tucson data. The NWS uses Scout Camp at 7500ft- much lower temps and cool at night. Definitely have to find the lowest elevation and it probably wouldn't be all that low.

Mt Lemmon at 100 'every day' is hilarious. Seriously? That doesn't even pass the smell test.

I thought it suspect too. They default to Tucson, even at Scout Camp the default history goes to Tucson. I find that strange.