Growers Weather Cold Snap

While most Hernando residents nestled under blankets during last week's cold snap, Butch Hostetter Jr. wrestled with a sprinkler head.
At about 11 p.m. one night last week, the co-owner of Butch's Blueberries worked by flashlight to repair the sprinkler head that had broken off, leaving an area of his three-acre u-pick blueberry farm on White Road in Brooksville vulnerable to the frigid temperatures.
"It felt good getting wet because the water was so much warmer than the air," Hostetter said with a chuckle.
Hostetter's plants remained encased in ice for three straight days last week. The icy shell helps protect the plant's blooms.
The strategy worked for the most part, Hostetter said Monday morning. It takes a few days after a cold spell to be able to gauge the effects, and Hostetter estimates the family farm lost about 10 to 15 percent of its blueberry blossoms, mostly when branches broke off under the weight of the ice.
"It hurts when you lose something, and with the economy you hate to lose anything that can make you money," he said.
Still, the family is glad that none of the plants appear to have died, especially since one morning a thermometer at the farm on White Road dropped to 10 degrees. They want to have the biggest crop possible when they open for pickers by April.
Other growers in the county reported similar results Monday: some damage, but far from catastrophic.
Dan Ebbecke, co-owner of D&S Blueberry Farm, figures he and his wife Sue lost about 15 percent of the blooms that were already open, which will likely mean a 5 percent loss to total production for the season.
Dan said he initially feared twice that, especially after running sprinklers over his 13 acres of berries for seven days.
"That's a record for me," he said.
The couple is optimistic that after pruning the damaged blooms, the plants will compensate to make the remaining fruit more robust.
"So we might not lose any weight," he said.
Dan Ebbecke also works as a crop adviser, and one of his duties is to assess damage for other farmers. He said one blueberry farmer in the area lost 20 percent of his blooms. He declined to specify which operation, citing a confidentiality code between adviser and client.
The Ebbeckes also have six acres of organic vegetables. They invested in a special covering - essentially an expensive blanket - that worked well, Dan Ebbecke said.
The two rows of beets he did not cover, however, "were burnt."
The beets at Beasley Farms east of Brooksville also suffered a bit, Joann Beasley said. Like the Ebbeckes, Beasley also sells beets with the tops still attached.
"They don't look as good as they did," she said. "I'm hoping they come out of that."
Her lettuce appears to be a total loss, she said. She'll try again in the spring.
Her Florida sweet onions are, despite their name, pretty cold hardy and seem to have done OK. And the collards actually like the cold, she said.
The state's Department of Agriculture probably won't be able to quantify the crop damage for a few days, said spokeswoman Liz Compton.
Citrus and strawberry growers are definitely reporting some damage, but the consensus seems to be better than expected, Compton said.
"It didn't get as cold for as long as people feared," she said.
There are reports of significant damage to the state's potato and green bean crops, however.
In Belle Glade, the damage to green beans was "devastating" to some, with one farmer reportedly losing most of the crop, Compton said.