help with chill hours! (for growing fruit trees)

10 years ago

I found a map that lists chill hours for FL.

It's broken up into different regions based on what area of FL it is (central, southern, or northern) and tells how many chill hours each area of FL gets.

I'm trying to figure out where on the map Ocala would be, and essentially how many chill hours (roughly) Ocala gets annually.

The map is from a site called just fruits and exotics, which
specializes in selling fruit trees specifically for FL and other states with low chill hours.

Here's what the map says....

Pan Handle (tallahassee, pensacola, etc.) 660-700 chill hours

Northeastern part of FL (Jacksonville and Gainsville area) 420-540

The other areas are 420-540 chill hours (I don't know what cities are in this area, that's what I'm trying to figure out) and 310-420 (further south, again I don't know what cities).

The rest of it is southern FL and is 200 chill hours or less.

Here is the link of where the chill hour map is listed you'll have to copy and paste it manually into browser, as I don't know how to get to display link where you click on it.

http://www.justfruitsandexotics.com/USDAZones.htm

Just scroll down and you'll see the chill hour map.

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Comments (6)

loufloralcityz9
10 years ago
Ocala is in the 310 to 420 range of chill hours by the map you refer to on just fruits & exotics. Many chill hour maps differ so I averaged a few of them for you and come up with 365 to 485 as the average chill hours for Ocala. Keep in mind the actual location will make a big difference (like proximity to a lake, or elevation, open pastures, heavily wooded, in the city or out in the country, etc.)

I hope this helps,
Lou

This post was edited by loufloralcityz9 on Sat, Jan 4, 14 at 21:19
zzackey
10 years ago
I would ask someone at your local agricultural center. They usually have good knowledge about that. Also EDIS has an online site. Type HS765 in the seach engine and it should come up. It has a chill hour map and talks about various fruit tree needs.
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Truscifi
10 years ago
Lou, what are our chill hours here in lovely Citrus county? I live between you and BR. And do you (or BR) have a recommendation for a particular variety or two of peach tree for this area?
loufloralcityz9
10 years ago
Tru,

The chill hours they assign for our location are 310 to 420 but it varies quite a bit due to actual location. My chill hours are actually a lot higher than BR gets even though he is north of me. I have huge pastures to my north so the cold north winds sweep across them and hit me here. My elevation is 119 feet on the top of a hill. Please ask BR for the best peach tree for your area... I keep killing peach trees here due to the fierce winds.

Lou
bamboo_rabbit
10 years ago
Audra,

Florida Prince seems popular, UF beauty. Blue Star in Hawthorne has them for like $14 in February and have a lot of different varieties.
TampaBull
10 years ago
Hi

Here's a great link. It shows you the current chill hours for your area:

Click on the Tools link. Select Degree Days and Chill Hour then Chill Hours Calculator.

You can then select the nearest station to you and see its info.

Here is a link that might be useful: http://agroclimate.org/