Portable Frost Control Gives Growers More Options
November 29, 2015 
The Frostbuster is a towable device used in frost protection. (Photo credit: Paige Equipment)
When it comes to frost control, heat often is a grower’s best defense. There are a lot of options to help control or alter the environmental conditions, but most are permanent.
Enter the Frostbuster, a portable device that uses a propane burner and a large fan to blow out heat to protect nearby trees. The Frostbuster is the largest of three units (the smaller, non-towed devices are called Frostguards) produced by Agrofrost. The Frostbuster also is towable.
What It Needs To Run
The Frostbuster holds six 100-pound bottles of propane and will use about 100 pounds per hour. Since the Frostbuster is towed, it also needs a 65-horsepower tractor to pull the device and operate the fan, which Nate Darrow of Saratoga Apple in Schuylerville, NY, likens to pulling an airblast sprayer.
“You’re basically blowing out a curtain of hot air down near the ground in both directions coming out perpendicular in both directions to the tractor,” Darrow says.
John Paige, of Paige Equipment Sales Services who distributes the Frostbuster and Frostguard devices in the U.S. says the Frostbuster will protect up to 20 acres at temperatures as low as 25°F.
The Frostguard, is self-contained and also needs propane — only 30 pounds per hour and will protect up to 2 acres of fruit as low as 25°F. The Frostguard’s 16-horsepower engine also will rotate the machine 360° every 8 minutes and have an auto-start and auto off at a set temperature.
Heat Rises, Moisture Doesn’t
Although the basic principle of heat rising would make you think this device is ineffective. Not so says Paige. The Frostbuster heats up the moisture in the air and because water is heavier than dry air, the heat lingers in the orchards, supplying much-needed temperature spikes on nights of frost events.
“Continuous use of this machine during a frost event will supply the plant with new warmed up moisture every 8 to 10 minutes,” Paige says. “These machines have been proven to protect fruit from frost damage down as low as 25°F.”
From The Grower’s Perspective
Jeff Send of Send & Emeott, LLC. in Travers City, MI, knows all too well what can happen to a crop in an extreme frost event like in the spring of 2012.
“If we would have had 6 or 8 of these in 2012, we would have paid for them very comfortably,” he says.
Paige says the Frostbuster can be used on almost any fruit crop. Send says he uses them to protect his high-value cherries.
Darrow does note it is important to train any staff who may use the device.
“You have to observe strict protocol with regard to running it with the fan is on and the ignition is running,” he says.
Both Send and Darrow say the devices are effective to run and easy to maintain.
“As long as you’ve started it properly before that frost settles in and let it run after the fact when the temperature is up, it works,” Send says.
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