Trixology

WeatherCat => WeatherCat Feature Requests => Topic started by: jenkins007 on March 24, 2013, 02:20:33 PM

Title: Chill hours
Post by: jenkins007 on March 24, 2013, 02:20:33 PM

I would like to be able to have Chill hours available. That would be every hour the temperature falls below 45 degrees. Since I live in Texas, some trees require a minimum of chill hours and my region has some chill hours but possibly not enough for some of the trees I would like to have. I would like to know how many chill hours per year.

Title: Re: Chill hours
Post by: Steve on March 24, 2013, 05:46:47 PM

I guess temperature is relative. You're looking at chill hours, but up here, temperatures below 45˚ would be measured in months! :)

Title: Re: Chill hours
Post by: WCDev on March 24, 2013, 08:43:44 PM

I'll add this to the feature request list - I'm guessing the actual temperature would need to be user settable :)

Title: Re: Chill hours
Post by: jenkins007 on March 25, 2013, 07:09:56 PM

LOL. Yes thanks a bunch. In researching trees, this becomes very interesting. There are 3 models:
1. Chill hours counts every hour from 45 degrees and below (I like this one, it is much simpler).
2. Chill hours counts every hour from 45 degrees down to and including 32 degrees.
3. The Utah model (probably for areas where it is usually way colder than the South US),

• Utah Model
  
  1 hour below 34 degrees F =0.0 chill unit
  
  1 hour 35-36 degrees F =0.5 chill units
  
  1 hour 37-48 degrees F =1.0 chill units
  
  1 hour 49-54 degrees F =0.5 chill units
  
  1 hour 55-60 degrees F =0.0 chill units
  
  1 hour 61-65 degrees F =-0.5 chill units
  
  1 hour >65 degrees F =-1.0 chill units

Since I live where it has 30+ days of over 100 degrees a lot of summers, the Utah model definitely would not work. The simplest will be hours at 45 degrees and below. I found some apple trees that require 250 chill hours. In looking at Frost days I recorded 10 last year and, whawho, so far 16 this year. But not sure how Frost days are calculated.

Title: Re: Chill hours
Post by: jg on July 01, 2013, 02:53:57 AM

This is similar to degree heating/cooling days (on my wishlist for a while).

Title: Re: Chill hours
Post by: WCDev on July 03, 2013, 08:50:04 AM

This is tentatively scheduled for the 2.0 development (we'll go for the 'hours below a certain temperature model').

A 'frost day' is any day where the temperature hit freezing or below. The amount of rain for a 'rain day' is configurable in WeatherCat's preferences.

jg, do you have the details of heating/cooling days so we can get this all in one thread then I can just paste it all in to the planning software.

Cheers,
Stu.