By Clint Thompson
North Alabama strawberry producer Jeremy Calvert believes implementing row covers during the Christmas freeze event saved the majority of his crop.
“Everything that I’ve got looks pretty good considering the cold event that we had in December. All of our berries were covered. Anywhere that the row covers might have blown up or were at the short end of a row or something like that and we didn’t get covered, they look pretty rough,” said Calvert, who operates J Calvert Farms in Cullman, Alabama. “Anything that was covered is okay.”
Calvert was one of the state’s numerous strawberry producers in attendance last week for the Alabama Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association Conference and Trade Show. He produces two net acres of strawberries along with other various crops in north-central Alabama. He said temperatures during last year’s holiday season dropped to as low as 6 degrees Fahrenheit (F).
Row covers can provide an extra 8 to 10 degrees F depending on the thickness of the material. But the main benefit the row covers provide was protection against the high wind speeds.
“The biggest advantage of the row cover was not that we gained 10 degrees under the row cover; that was good, but the biggest advantage was it knocked the wind off of them,” Calvert said.
He also discussed the impact the event had on strawberries that were not protected.
“It basically cleaned the plant off at the top of the plastic. It has to regrow from the crown, which means you’ve lost two months of growing time,” Calvert said. “Some of them may not come out. Some of them may be dead just because of the shock of the cold that they got.”