Research Article the Study of Frost Occurrence in Free State Province of South Africa

Hindawi Publishing Corporation Advances in Meteorology Volume 2016, Article ID 9586150, 9 pages http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2016/9586150 Research Article The Study of Frost Occurrence in Free State Province of South Africa Mokhele Edmond Moeletsi,1,2 Mphethe Tongwane,1 and Mitsuru Tsubo1 1 ARC-Institute for Soil, Climate and Water, Private Bag X79, Pretoria 0001, South Africa 2Risks and Vulnerability Assessment Centre, University of Limpopo, Private Bag X1106, Sovenga 0727, South Africa Correspondence should be addressed to Mokhele Edmond Moeletsi; [email protected] Received 5 April 2016; Revised 16 July 2016; Accepted 2 August 2016 Academic Editor: Anthony R. Lupo Copyright © 2016 Mokhele Edmond Moeletsi et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The study investigated the cessation, onset, and duration of light, medium, and heavy frost in Free State province of South Africa using minimum temperatures from 1960 to 2015. Trends in the frost indices were assessed using the Man-Kendall test. Onset of frost varied spatially with earlier onset over the northern, eastern, and southeastern parts. Areas of early onset also experience late cessation of frost resulting in shorter growing period of less than 240 days. The western parts have longer growing period exceeding 240 days due to earlier cessation of frost and relatively late onset of frost. Trends for the frost-free period (growing period) show contrasting negative and positive trends with isolated significant trends. 1. Introduction crops during the early vegetative stage, respectively [9]. There are four main characteristics of frosts: the onset of Maize (Zea mays) is a major crop in Sub-Saharan Africa as frost or first frost date, cessation of frost or last frost date, it forms a staple food of most people in the region [1]. South duration of the frost-free or frost period, and the frequency Africa is amongst the ten highest maize producing countries of frosts. The cessation of frost in southern Africa marks in the world with an average of 12 million tonnes per year, the beginning of the growing period which occurs mostly contributing approximately 2% of the world’s maize produc- during the months of September and October, while the tion [2]. Free State province produces over 35% of the maize onset of frost indicates that the growing period of most inSouthAfrica[3].However,theaveragemaizeyieldfor the province varies greatly from one year to another, mainly, summercropsiscomingtoanend,whichnormallyoccurs due to climate variability [4]. Overall the environmental in April, May, and June [5]. Studies by Tait and Zheng [10], conditionsandnaturalresourcesofFreeStateareconducive Rahimi et al. [11], and Varshavian et al. [9] emphasized the for maize production but there are also agroclimatological importance of frost analyses, especially how knowledge about hazards that have a detrimental effect on production [4, 5]. thefrequencyandtimingoffrostswillhelpreducetherisk These restrictive occurrences include drought, late cessation of damage in frost vulnerable areas as well as minimizing offrostthatdamagesearlyplantedcrops,earlyonsetoffrost futurefrostdamage.Duetotheinterannualvariabilityof affecting crops at later stages of their growth, sporadic hail frost, continuous updating of frost dates is necessary to reflect occurrence, and low temperatures during the growing period recent climatic events [12]. resulting in reduced maize crop production [6, 7]. Different temperature thresholds are used for determin- Apart from drought, farmers consider frost as the major ing frost. For example, Zenoni et al. [13] studied the risk ∘ ∘ hazard that influences their year to year production [8]. related to late frost using five different thresholds (−1 C, −2 C, ∘ ∘ ∘ On an annual basis across most frost-prone countries, onset −3 C, −4 C, and −5 C). Hejazizadeh and Naserzadeh [14] ∘ ∘ ∘ of frost in autumn and cessation of frost in spring cause categorized frost as weak (0 Cto2C), moderate (−2 Cto ∘ ∘ damage to late planted or long-season crops and early planted −4 C),orsevere(below−4 C) in Iran. Trasmonte et al. [15] 2 Advances in Meteorology studiedthefrostriskintheMantaroRiverbasinofPeru Table 1: Information for climate stations in Free State province used ∘ ∘ ∘ ∘ ∘ using the following limits: 5 C, 2.5 C, 0 C, −2 C, and −4 C. in the frost assessment study. The threshold to use has to be specific according to acrop Station Latitude Longitude Altitude (m) Region of interest but different thresholds can also be used to show − severity of frost risk or to accommodate a variety of crops. Bethlehem 28.1626 28.2953 1631 Northeastern Grain crops including maize freeze at temperatures below Bloemfontein −28.9500 26.3333 1304 Central ∘ ∘ 0 C, so a screen temperature of 0 Cisasuitableindicator Bothaville −27.4000 26.5000 1280 Northern of damaging frost [16]. The critical temperature for maize Fauresmith −29.7700 25.3200 1522 Southwestern ∘ ∘ is between −1 Cand−2 C[17].Trasmonteetal.[15]used Ficksburg −28.8667 27.8500 1829 Eastern ∘ the 5 C threshold to determine the frost risk analysis for the Frankfort −27.2667 28.5000 1502 Northeastern maize crop due to its sensitivity to low temperatures. Virginia −28.1000 26.8667 1335 Northwestern The risk of frost varies greatly in Free State province due Wepener −29.7333 27.0333 1438 Southeastern to the contrasting topography and geographical aspect. Thus, Zastron −30.3000 27.0830 1661 Southeastern there is a need to investigate the variability of the frost indices in the region and their impact on agricultural production. In this study, frost risk for dryland maize production in ∘ ∘ Free State was assessed using three thresholds: −2 C, 0 C, ∘ for each agricultural season was then calculated for light, and 2 C. These thresholds have been determined based on medium, and heavy frost occurrences as the number of days previous studies in other regions [11, 13–17]. Three main between last and first frost. The frost-free period is the most indices were determined for each threshold: onset of frost, important index which marks the length of the growing cessation of frost, and duration of frost-free period. Trends period for most crops in the high lying regions. in these indices were assessed at selected stations in Free State with data from 1960 to 2015. 2.2.2. Statistical Analysis. Minitab software was used to determine the appropriate probability distribution for all 2. Data and Methods the variables (onset, cessation, and frost period) at each station. All the data for different frost indices at thresholds 2.1. Data. All the data used was obtained from the Agri- were tested for the following distributions at 95% confidence cultural Research Council (ARC) and the South African level: Normal, LogNormal, Gamma, Exponential, Weibull, WeatherService(SAWS).Thedailyminimumtemperature Logistic, and LogLogistic. The best distribution was selected dataset was used in the analysis for determination of frost based on the highest significant> ( 0.05) values.Theonset risk assessment in Free State province. The data used in the of frost, cessation of frost, and frost-free period were deter- study was recorded inside a Stevenson screen elevated at 1.3 m mined for different probability levels based on the selected above ground level. The data was arranged by agricultural distribution to assess frost occurrence in Free State province. season (July to June). Nine stations scattered in different parts To clearly show the risk associated with the onset of frost, of the province were selected with data efficiency exceeding cessation of frost, frost period, and frost-free period, the 70%from1960to2015(Figure1;Table1). exceedance probability was used for the cessation of frost Where necessary, the data was patched with the UK while the nonexceedance probability was used for the other traditional method which uses the nearest neighbour stations frost indices. (up to five) to determine average temperature values ina particular month and then uses the differences (target station long-term mean temperature – neighbour station long-term 2.2.3. Trends in Frost Incidences. To determine whether there mean temperature) in values to patch within that month [18]. are trends in the onset of frost, cessation of frost, and duration Apatchedvalueistakenfromtheaverageofallthepredicted of frost, the Man-Kendall test was carried out at 95% and 90% values from each nearby station. confidence levels. 2.2. Methods 3. Results 2.2.1. Determination of Frost Occurrence. The data was Frost indices varied widely throughout Free State province. arranged according to agricultural season from July to June The analysis of frost probabilities is at 20%, 50%, and 80% of the following year. For each season the last day of frost nonexceeding/exceeding showing a return period of 4 in 5 in spring (cessation of frost) and the first day of frost in years for nonexceeding(1 in 5 years for exceeding), 1 in 2 years, autumn (onset of frost) were determined at each of the and 1 in 5 years for nonexceeding (4 in 5 years for exceeding), stations and for each year. Screen temperatures of greater respectively. ∘ ∘ than 0 C upper bounded by 2 C are considered as light frost. Minimum temperatures recorded on the screen greater than 3.1. Distribution Fitting. The best-fit distribution for the ∘ ∘ ∘ ∘ ∘ −2 C upper bounded by 0 C are considered as medium frost,

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