Recent frosty nights damage berry crops, chicks die in nests

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Aatos Kantanen, who lives in Kyyjärvi in Central Finland, rubbed his eyes when he took a look at his outdoor thermometer at 3.00 a.m. during the night between Saturday and Sunday. The reading was - 10°C. Yes, minus 10.
      ”Several perennials that have never been affected before were killed by the frost in our garden. For example some common hops (Humulus lupulus) got frostbitten, while the bergenias (Bergenia cordifolia) are looking rather bleak, and the garden bushes have suffered as well”, reports Aatos Kantanen’s wife Pirjo Kantanen, speaking over the phone from her garden in Kyyjärvi on Monday evening.
      The frost also took a bite out of the Kantanens’ blooming strawberries and currants. However, potatoes had been covered with a thin cotton gauze which had also frozen during the night, after having got wet in the evening rain.
     
At the weekend, frosty nights killed perennials here and there, while also hurting the blooming of berry bushes in gardens and in forests in Ostrobothnia as well as in Central and Northern Finland.
      According to the official gauges of the Finnish Meteorological Institute, the lowest ground-level temperature was -8.5°C measured in Alajärvi in Southern Ostrobothnia during the night between Saturday and Sunday. The measuring place is less than 40 kilometres west of the Kantanens’ garden.
     
”Strawberry growers have used sprinkler irrigation, which can prevent frost injury”, says Ilkka Voutilainen, the executive director of the Berry Growers’ Association of the Suonenjoki region.
      However, sprinklers do not help currant bushes, but Voutilainen says that the blooming of currants is already coming to an end in Suonenjoki in the North Savo region.
      In the allotment garden of Heidi Ovaska, a garden counsellor at the national Martha Association in Pirkanmaa, young squash plants had been damaged by frost.
     
Because a frost danger is predicted to prevail almost in the entire country at least during the following night, Ovaska is advising all growers to cover their plants with a cotton gauze, which can prevent frost damage in temperatures down to some degrees below zero.
      ”Tomatoes are very sensitive to cold, and so are also basil and pepper”, Ovaska reports.
     
At the same time, a number of chicks have been found dead in nests as a result of the chilly early summer.
      ”The smaller the chick and the more open the location of the nest, the more sensitive the young bird is to cold”, reports Teemu Lehtiniemi, the head of conservation and science at BirdLife Finland, the parent organisation of Finnish ornithological societies.
      ”The cold period has certainly been difficult for terns (Sternidae) nesting on rocky islets and for northern lapwings (Vanellus vanellus) nesting in fields”, Lehtiniemi observes.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  A quarter of young strawberry plants in Suonenjoki region destroyed by voles (22.5.2009)

Links:
  Finnish Meteorological Institute
  Birdlife Finland

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