Growers in Florida spent the morning assessing crop losses from last night’s freezing weather. Overall the damage was minimal and not widespread.
Vegetable, fruit and citrus growers stayed up throughout the night working to protect crops from cold weather that reached as low as 28 degrees in some areas.
Citrus groves were relatively unscathed. “We may have lost a few flowers for next years’ crop on some of the early varieties, but most citrus trees put out a lot more flowers than they do fruit and they naturally drop a lot of those flowers without ever producing fruit,” said Gene McAvoy with the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences extension office in Immokalee.
“So it’s really hard to say if there’s going to be any impact at all.”
McAvoy’s spoken with a number of Southwest Florida growers Friday morning to assess the extent of the damage.
“We have had some minimal crop damage on most of your vegetable crops,” said McAvoy. “Where we did see some significant damage was in the sweet corn and green beans out around Lake Okeechobee, Palm Beach County and Hendry County. That will produce an impact on yields in the future. Some of the worst effected beans may have to be replanted.”
In the coming weeks, cold-damaged plants will require additional fungicide applications to protect against fungus and bacteria, and that means higher costs for growers. Warmer weather is expected in the coming days, and that will also help crops recover.
