Discovery of Chilling Hours as a Primary Factor in the Growth of Deciduous Trees

The Chilling Hours method, proposed by Bennett (1949) and Weinberger (1950), became known when applied to analyze the dormancy time of peaches in Fort Valley, Georgia, USA. According to this model, all temperatures between 0 and 7.2 °C are effective in overcoming latency. In short, the model calculates the total hours in which temperatures fall within that range.