Chilling part 4

We have made a slight modification to the blackberry chilling model. The model now uses instantaneous temperatures for calculating the inception date for all models. Up until a few days ago, the model used hourly average temperatures to determine when the model starts for a season.  So now, the model now starts about a month earlier, and we have many more hours.  Today at 8 am we have 735 hours. We are still short of what we normally get, but have a few weeks in February to accumulate some more chilling.

With the adjustment in the model, most of the blackberry and raspberry cultivars we grow here have met or are getting close to meeting their chilling requirement for the year.  Many of the selections in my field in Salisbury, NC are breaking bud. We will be monitoring them closely for the next few weeks.