Agricultural production is a rather risky activity, as it is largely exposed to extreme weather events. This paper focuses on the frostand hail data in springtime, affecting fruit production in West Hungary. Regarding absolute minimum temperatures in April, significantincrease of the standard deviations could be observed. Among the sites examined Nagykanizsa shows the highest risk values. According toour evaluation Nagykanizsa is not recommended to plant sour cherry, sweet cherry and apricot orchards because in some years spring frostwill occur. If the plantation is in Zalaegerszeg, Szombathely, Gyôr or Keszthely than usage of frost prevention system is recommended. Siófokis the only area to grow apricot with good result

J., Nyéki

K., Szentteleki

M., Gaál

M., Soltész

Z., Mézes

Z., Szabó

University of Debrecen Electronic Archive

Introduction
Agricultural production is a rather risky activity, as it is
largely exposed to extreme weather events. Based on the
surveys of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural
Development and of the Association of Hungarian Insurance
Companies Sütô (2009) indicated the occurrence of drought
damage as the most significant (39,1%), followed by hail
damage (22,3%), inland waters (21,1%) and frost damage
(14,8%). The climatic indicators can be easily related to risks
and may serve also the analysis of effects of climate change
(Ladányi et al., 2010; Persely et al., 2010).
Nowadays the corner stone of modern fruit production is
efficiency which practically means first class fruit quality,
high and safety yield, even if unusual weather conditions
occur. Therefore the winter and spring frost hardiness of the
different varieties is important. This paper focuses on sweet
cherry, sour cherry, and apricot varieties. The critical period
for these fruits is from the end of internal dormancy to the
end of flowering.Winter frost hardiness of sour cherry, sweet
cherry is good enough during dormancy period of the
common varieties in Hungary. On the other hand some
apricot varieties with short internal dormancy phase possibly
have winter frost damage in cold years (Crabble, 1994;
Szalay, 2001). The research focuses only on flower buds as
the other parts of the tree are more frost hardy. There are two
important factors of spring frost: the number of frosty days
during flowering and the minimum temperature occurred.
The production areas can be assessed for production safety
according to these two factors.
Sour cherry is the most frost resistant fruit out of the three
species. It can stand –25°C during winter dormancy. The
flowering period depends on the spring temperatures but
generally occurs between 20th March and 30th April.
Varieties have different spring frost resistance. While
flowering stage is going on the level of resistance is reducing
until –2°C, the critical temperature during flowering.
Flowers are possibly freezing if colder weather occurs.
Sweet cherry is less resistant than sour cherry but more
than apricot. It can stand the same minimum temperatures
during dormancy like sour cherry. Critical period is during
flowering 3rd decade of March – 3rd decade of April. Critical
temperature in flowering is –1,5°C.
Apricot is the most sensitive and there is a big deviation
among the different varieties. Resistant varieties like ‘Rózsa
kajszi C 1406’ can stand the same winter and spring frost
temperatures as sour cherry but a sensitive variety for
example ‘Roxana’ is much less resistant than sweet cherry.
Therefore in case of apricot production the assessment of the
different areas is essential. In some areas of Hungary it is not
recommended to grow apricot because frost – mainly spring
frost – can damage 60–100% of the crop. Blooming period is
about 3 weeks before cherries 20th February – 30th March.
Temperature –1,5°C is the critical level but as the blooming
is earlier, spring frost damage has a higher probability.
Materials and methods
Meteorological data were recorded by the Hungarian
Meteorological Service (HMS). The available data set covers
basically the time interval 1951–2009, but unfortunately
there are missing values. Therefore in case of minimum
temperatures the period 1964–2009 was analysed.
We must face to the problem that some parameters – like
type of the precipitation – are not recorded at all
meteorological stations. The knowledge of duration and
intensity of the daily precipitation would be also very useful.
In case of comparing values of two periods the Analysis
ToolPak of the Excel 2003 was used: comparison of the
Extreme weather events in West Hungary
Mézes, Z.1, Gaál, M.2, Szenteleki, K.2, Soltész, M.1, Nyéki, J.1 & Szabó, Z.1
1University of Debrecen, Hungary
2Corvinus University of Budapest, Hungary
Summary:Agricultural production is a rather risky activity, as it is largely exposed to extreme weather events. This paper focuses on the frost
and hail data in springtime, affecting fruit production in West Hungary. Regarding absolute minimum temperatures in April, significant
increase of the standard deviations could be observed. Among the sites examined Nagykanizsa shows the highest risk values. According to
our evaluation Nagykanizsa is not recommended to plant sour cherry, sweet cherry and apricot orchards because in some years spring frost
will occur. If the plantation is in Zalaegerszeg, Szombathely, Gyôr or Keszthely than usage of frost prevention system is recommended. Siófok
is the only area to grow apricot with good result.
Key words: hail, spring frost, apricot, sweet cherry, sour cherry
International Journal of Horticultural Science 2010, 16 (4): 29–32.
Agroinform Publishing House, Budapest, Printed in Hungary
ISSN 1585-0404
30
variances with F-test and then comparison of the means by
t-test in case of equal variances or t-test in case of unequal
variances (Welch-test).
Results
Absolute minimum temperatures in April
The absolute minimum temperatures in April were
analysed, as it is the main blooming period of many fruit
species. There is no trend in the whole data series, but the
second part of it shows more variability (Figure 1.).
Therefore two periods were defined (1964–1985 and
1986–2009) and statistical analyses were done to compare
the means and standard deviations (Table 1). The means of
the absolute minimum temperatures did not show significant
differences except in Zalaegerszeg. In case of the standard
deviations statistical analyses proved the increase of them.
According to the results is clearly visible that the area of
Gyôr is good for sour cherry and sweet cherry production in
the aspect of minimum temperatures. There can be more
problem with spring frost in the areas of Szombathely and
Nagykanizsa as the minimum temperatures are below –2°C
and standard deviation is higher.
The most risky is Zalaegerszeg because means of
minimum temperatures are –2,71°C and –0,83°C in the two
periods examined. The second period is relatively good for
sweet and sour cherry but the standard deviation is 2,37°C,
the biggest across all areas which means that Zalaegerszeg
has the most extreme temperature range. Frost prevention
system is recommended to avoid damage in this area. In case
of apricot all areas are risky. These are not the main areas of
apricot production in Hungary and our findings shows one of
the causes. A surprising result is Gyôr because it is a plain
area and spring frost damage usually occurs with higher
probability in such places. Apricot is better grown close to
mountains of North-East Hungary and around Lake Balaton.
In West Hungary the biggest production area are Tolna and
Fejér counties. Taking into account the minimum
temperatures sweet cherry and sour cherry are recommended
to grow in Nagykanizsa, Gyôr and also in Szombathely area
with some frost prevention methods.
Number of frosty days in April
In the period examined there is no trend in the number of
frosty days in April and no statistical difference can be found
between the formerly analysed two periods. Comparing the
sites the number of frosty days was significantly the highest
in Nagykanizsa (Figure 2).
The volume of the future yield depends not only on the
frequency, but also on the temperature of the frosty days. The
peak can be found in 1997, in this year in Nagykanizsa and
Keszthely temperatures below –6°C were recorded, too.
In 2002 February and March were warmer than usually
therefore the cool and frosty days in middle of April caused
serious damages in blooming fruit plantations. Especially in
Nagykanizsa, where the temperature dropped below –6°C again.
The year 2003 had many extreme temperature values.
The monthly averages from January to April were below the
long-term means – so the number of frosty days is also high
– but the summer was extreme warm.
In the year 2007 several orchards were suffered spring
frost damages in almost the whole country. It was very
critical in East Hungary, where the frost damage caused
entirely crop failure (Nagy et al., 2008), but orchards in the
West Hungary did not have serious damages (Szabó et al.,
2008). As it can be seen in Figure 2, only in Nagykanizsa
were frosty days in this year.
Generally speaking about the examined production areas
Siófok and Gyôr are the least risky, there were the number of
frosty days during April the lowest in the last 45 years.
Siófok has outstanding results so it is recommended for
apricot production as well.
One of the most extreme years was 1997 but even in this
year in Siófok the cold was moderate and there were only
two frosty days. In the monitored time interval Gyôr and
Keszthely are similar, however Gyôr has slightly more years
with frosty days, but the extent of the frost was greater in
Keszthely. All in all for apricot production only Siófok is
recommended out of the measured places.
Sweet cherry is more spring frost resistant so Gyôr,
Zalaegerszeg and Szombathely are good growing places for
that. Figure 2. shows that in some years –6 – –4°C occur so
frost prevention is a basic question there. Irrigation or other
techniques can be used for that which can protect flowers
Mézes, Z., Gaál, M., Szenteleki, K., Soltész, M., Nyéki, J. & Szabó, Z.
Figure 1.Absolute minimum temperatures in April
-8
-6
-4
-2
0
2
4
1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010
°C
Zalaegerszeg Nagykanizsa Szombathely Gy?r
Table 1.Absolute minimum temperatures in April – summary of statistics
Mean Standard deviation
1964– 1986– 1964– 1986–
1985 2009
sign.
1985 2009
sign.
Zalaegerszeg –2.71 –0.83 ** 1.23 2.37 **
Nagykanizsa –2.00 –2.57 0.98 2.28 **
Szombathely –2.24 –1.69 1.30 1.94 *
Gyôr –1.05 –1.65 0.97 1.97 **
Significant differences: * p<0.05, ** p<0.01
31
even at -6°C making the production profitable even in the
extreme cold years. Nagykanizsa is the worst in the aspect of
spring frost because in some years temperatures colder than
–6°C occur. Even with frost prevention such cold
temperatures possibly cause significant frost damage on
sweet and even sour cherry flowers.
According to our evaluation Nagykanizsa is not
recommended to plant sour, sweet cherry and apricot
orchards because in some years spring
frost will occur. If the plantation is in
Zalaegerszeg, Szombathely, Gyôr or
Keszthely than usage of frost
prevention system is recommended.
Siófok is the only area to grow apricot
with good result.
Hail event frequencies
Hail events are not rare in Hungary.
Disregarding the spatial and temporal
differences, there are about 70–140
days in Hungary with hail events.
Szuróczki & Tôkei (1985) estimates the
yearly number of hail days at a certain
place between 1 and 3. In the three
West Hungarian meteorological
stations – from where we have data –
the ten-years frequencies are below 10,
but in Nagykanizsa and Siófok the
number of it was slightly increasing in
the last decades (Figure 3).
Based on the literature the most
dangerous months are May, June and
July (Bálint, 1967; Wirth et al., 1985).
Data from Nagykanizsa and Szil show
similar distribution, but in Siófok hail
events in April were more frequent.
Hailstorm is a problem for all fruit
species grown in Hungary, but
protective systems are still rarely used
in orchards. On of the reasons is the
high construction costs, but another
reason is the cultivation system of the
plantations (Soltész et al., 2006).
Generally in old orchards (10–20 years
of age) there is big spacing (7*5 m; 6*4
m; etc.) and the canopy height is higher
than 2.5–3 meters. Therefore the hail
protective net can be placed hardly
above the trees and in big spacing the
unit cost is much higher than in case of
a modern orchard with for example 4*2
m spacing and approx. 2 m canopy
height. Hail has different effects on the
fruits in different phonological phases.
During March and April a hailstorm
can knock down the flowers from the
trees. There is no foliage on the tree so the hail makes damage
directly on the flowers or young fruits. One month prior the
harvest period the hail mainly cause damage on the surface of
the fruit (brown scab). 10–15 days before and during the whole
harvest period a hail event can damage the flesh of the fruits
(brown areas inside) and even can break the peel. If the fruit
peel has broken mildew and other fungi are possibly occur so
the product can not be sold for fresh market or for industry.
Extreme weather events in West Hungary
Nagykanizsa
0
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ay
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Zalaegerszeg
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ay
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Szombathely
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ay
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Gyôr
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ay
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Keszthely
0
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ay
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Siófok
0
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00
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d
ay
s
-2- 0°C -4- -2°C -6- -4°C -8- -6°C
Figure 2. Number of frosty days in April
Nagykanizsa
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
1951-1960
1961-1970
1971-1980
1981-1990
1991-2000
2001-2010
frequency
Szil
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
1951-1960
1961-1970
1971-1980
1981-1990
1991-2000
2001-2010
frequency
Siófok
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
1951-1960
1961-1970
1971-1980
1981-1990
1991-2000
2001-2010
frequency
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December
Figure 3. Frequencies of hail events (1951–2009)
32
Apricot varieties without red cover colour are more sensitive
because even 1–2 mm diameter brown scabs are visible. In
case of European first class apricot no peel errors are
permitted. Red sweet cherry varieties are less sensitive,
because the hail damage (brown area under the skin) is less
visible than in case of yellow cherries. Sweet and sour cherry
only with error free peel and flesh can be sold on fresh market.
Brown spots on the cherry fruits are not permitted for canning
industry these fruits can be sold only for juice factories.
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Extreme weather events inWest Hungary

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Extreme weather events inWest Hungary

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