Stephan Thaler and Josef Zwatz win Best Poster Award, for their work on PCM for the protection of fruit trees against late frost!

Late frost is a major problem for fruit trees. To prevent the buds from freezing, farmers spray large amounts of water on the branches (to create an insulating layer of ice and slow down the cooling of the buds) or use burners next to the trees. Both solutions are obviously problematic, from an environmental point of view. Based on an original idea by Karoline Schilcher and Pascal Nicolay, Stephan Thaler and Josef Zwatz have developed an original test bench, to test the possibility of using phase change materials (PCM) to keep the temperature of the trees slightly above zero. Their work and results are described in the poster, available here. This poster has just won the best poster award at the “2023 Forschungsforum der österreichischen Fachhochschulen”, which took place in St Polten, on the 19-20 April. Congratulations to both of them!