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Which climates do you think stands a better chance growing fruiting coco palms with irrigation?
Both climates are way too dry to grow them but in this hypothetical situation, you'd have an unlimited supply of warm water at your fingertips to irrigate them as much as you want for half an hour twice a day but you can't artificially heat them at night.
A) L.A: high sunshine hours year round with warmer summer days (especially inland) but cooler winter nights than Lima. You can also carefully choose which microclimate within the city that you want to plant those cocos.
B) Lima: Very low sunshine hours in winter but with much warmer nights than L.A. that consistently stay above 55 F for the entire winter most years and are completely immune from dropping below 45 F ever.
Definitely Lima. Average winter temperature and extent of record lows is far more significant than how warm summers are.
I would agree about the overnight lows and also voted for Lima. However, what about the lack of winter sunshine? L.A's winters have about 70 percent of possible sunshine because its usually sunny or mostly sunny on days it doesn't rain. Lima only has about 10-15 percent of possible sunshine during the cloudiest winter months.
Enough UV radiation and or sunlight will still penetrate the cloud cover/fog for palm tree growth. They grow just fine in climates with very cloudy summers or winters too. Just look at Quibdó: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quibdó#Climate
Enough UV radiation and or sunlight will still penetrate the cloud cover/fog for palm tree growth. They grow just fine in climates with very cloudy summers or winters too. Just look at Quibdó: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quibdó#Climate
But Quibdo's temperatures are much higher under the cloud cover.
90 F and cloudy with high humidity feels hot and sticky
60 F and cloudy with high humidity feels damp and chilly making it feel cooler than it actually is.
Coco Palms love hot and sticky. Not so much cloudy, chilly and damp.
I would say that LA has a better chance as we get much more daytime warmth than Lima year round. Our only negative for coco growth is our winter lows in the 40s outside the coastal areas, but considering we have unlimited warm water at our disposal, I would dot (or drop, I'm not sure) irrigate the palms all night from December till February and our "cold" winter nights won't be a problem.
Lima on the other side has warm lows in their winter that don't require anymore warming for cocos, but limas daytime highs are too low, 1/2 of the Los Angeles Area yearly average high is the same or higher than Lima's warmest average monthly high (79F in feb).
I would say that LA has a better chance as we get much more daytime warmth than Lima year round. Our only negative for coco growth is our winter lows in the 40s outside the coastal areas, but considering we have unlimited warm water at our disposal, I would dot (or drop, I'm not sure) irrigate the palms all night from December till February and our "cold" winter nights won't be a problem.
Lima on the other side has warm lows in their winter that don't require anymore warming for cocos, but limas daytime highs are too low, 1/2 of the Los Angeles Area yearly average high is the same or higher than Lima's warmest average monthly high (79F in feb).
I think it's the cold nights combined with wet conditions that are the biggest problem for coconut palms in LA. The Newport palm has probably only survived because of the extreme microclimate created by the building and sidewalk.
Lima wouldn't have the same issues with cold, wet weather causing decline.
Lima due to warmer winter nights.. at 12° latitude, any sunshine and UV that you would get in the winter would be way stronger than LA's I think even if it is much cloudier overall.
Lima due to warmer winter nights.. at 12° latitude, any sunshine and UV that you would get in the winter would be way stronger than LA's I think even if it is much cloudier overall.
Exactly.
Lima gets quite a bit of sunshine in summer anyway.
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