By Clint Thompson
South Florida experienced a freeze/ice storm the region hasn’t seen in about 15 to 16 years, according to one industry expert. Gene McAvoy, a crop consultant, talked about the Feb. 1 storm that impacted multiple crops, including watermelons, sweet corn and tomatoes.
“If (watermelons) weren’t covered, they’re gone. A lot of them were young so they can cover with takeout trays, or even with real small plants, they’ll put a sheet of paper on top of them and cover them up with soil; and dig them out a couple of days later,” McAvoy said. “I’m hearing 40% on some fields.
“We had some (watermelons) that they planted in December. They’ve started running. Then some planted after that in January. I’ve seen pictures that are anywhere from six-inch size plants to starting to run a little bit.”
McAvoy was not optimistic that growers would be able to replant, due to the lack of transplants available.
“Some of them will order 20%, 10% extra just for loss due to whatever, but I don’t think too many people anticipated a 40% loss,” McAvoy said.
Sweet Corn
“Corn, beans were worse than that. They do cover some of the real young corn that’s less than knee high. On the muck soil, they’ll run a plow alongside it, turn dirt up and bury them. They then have to come back a couple of days later and have guys walk down and dig each plant out individually.”
Tomatoes
“Tomatoes, you can’t really cover too easily because the stakes will punch holes through the covers. If you look at my Facebook page, you can see a pretty good size field of tomatoes in LaBelle that’s just toast; mature, up to the top of the stake tomatoes that are just gone.”