Farmers wait, watch as crop thaws

[Billy Simmons of Simmons Strawberry Farms watches his strawberry crop just before sunrise. Chris Zuppa | Times]

DOVER -- Strawberry growers in eastern Hillsborough County battled broken water pipes and wind last night as they labored to protect their crops from below-freezing weather.

"Everybody thinks they're ready, then they have the impact," said Judi Whitson with the Hillsborough County Farm Bureau, a grassroots nonprofit group with 4,800 member families in the county. "Some people get it worse than others."

Meanwhile, analysts with Florida's citrus industry they "dodged a bullet" this morning, according a statement issued by the Lakeland-based Florida Citrus Mutual.

"This is good news for growers, good news for consumers and good news for the state of Florida," Florida Citrus Mutual CEO Michael W. Sparks said in the statement. "Mother nature cut us a break this time and now we can continue to produce the quality citrus crop Florida is known for."

Berry farmers say it will be later this afternoon - or possibly even this weekend - before they know the full impact the freeze had on their crop.

So far, though, it doesn't appear to be as devastating as some predicted.

"We've still got the water running," Rick Peacock, who operates Berry Patch Farms in Dover and Plant City, said early this morning. "The wind was pretty rough. It's kind of hard to tell right now how much damage there is."

Boyett's Grove east of Brooksville came through the night in good shape, said owner Kathy Oleson. She said even the most sensitive fruits -- lemons and limes -- suffered no damage.

"So far, it looks pretty good," Oleson said. "We got right to the edge, but the time frame was okay."

Cold fronts that extend for several nights with temperatures dipping into the teens are "when we worry," she said, and that's not expected to happen this week. She also noted that Boyett's groves sit on one of the highest spots in Florida, and that keeps the temperatures a bit warmer.

Strawberry growers spray water on the fruit to protect it from frost. If it's too windy, berries don't get covered properly and might not survive. Peacock estimated winds at 10 mph and said his lowest temperature reading was 27 degrees. The low at Parkesdale Farms, also in Dover, was 26 degrees.

Owner Gary Parke said an irrigation pipe burst at 10:30 last night and left 21 acres unprotected from the cold for 90 minutes, and that meant less water for another 60 acres. "We had some excitement," Parke said.

He anticipates at least some of his crop will be ruined.

Down the road, Billy Simmons was a little more optimistic. The ice over his 80 acres of strawberry crop froze clear.

And that's a good thing, according to Simmons, a fourth-generation strawberry man and owner of Simmons Farm.

"If it's milky, that would mean it's not protecting right," he said.

Simmons estimated overnight winds at his place only reached about 5 mph, not the 20 mph gusts predicted Wednesday. That means the sprinkler system was able to apply -- at a rate of 100 gallons per acre, per minute -- an even coating over the entire field, thus insulating the strawberry blooms at a survivable 32 degrees.

Simmons expected "minimal" losses in the predicted overnight hard freeze that put him and other area farmers on high alert. Simmons estimated a maximum loss of 5 to 10 percent of the crop but said that's likely a generous estimate because the Simmons Farms crew began preparing early Wednesday, when workers picked 2,300 boxes of ripe strawberries and applied silicon lubricant to the tips of dozens of sprinkler heads to prevent freezing.

The cold weather may push the interval between harvests, which typically take place every three days.  Now, that might be pushed back to every fourth or fifth day, Simmons said.

Gary Wishnatzki, of Wishnatzki Farms in Plant City said at noon that he had turned the water off as soon as temperatures got below freezing. That was at about 10 a.m.

"I can still see ice," Wishnatzki said.

He didn't expect much damage, but he said it can sometimes take a couple of days for blooms to start dying. If that happens, the plant won't produce berries.

Simmons said workers would begin at daybreak assessing what, if any, damage had been done to the crop. They'll look for dark-coloring on damaged strawberry blooms.

But at first glance, "everything's good," said 26-year-old Shad Simmons, Billy's son. He just returned from a trip scouting the field for damage in his pickup truck. Icicles were hanging from the fender.

"I haven't seen this much ice in a long time," he said.

Strawberry growers weren't the only ones worried and waiting.

Tim Hennessy, a tropical fish farmer with operations in Hillsborough and Desoto counties, said he won't know the full impact of the cold for several weeks.

Hennessy said he was pumping warm water into his outdoor ponds, but the fish could still be stressed by the weather. That stress can weaken the fish, leading to disease and other problems later on.

- Casey Cora and Jan Wesner, Times staff writers

Comments

[Lucy]

I bought some Dover strawberries yesterday, and they are wonderful (no surprise there). No Please keep sending them up here to North Carolina, as we will make fast work of them.

[jon]

Who cares? I hope all the strawberries rot!

[Joan]

Right on jon. Who really cares about lousy strawberries enough for the media to make such a big deal!

[Dave]

Hey Lucy ..................I hope you choke on a frozen strawberry!