HOMESTEAD, FLa. – Half of the country’s produce in the winter months comes from South Florida, and local farmers fear most or all of it could be destroyed by cold weather.
Watering their crop is their offensive strike, but the water temperature of around 72 degrees will be much warmer than the surrounding air will be when the temperature plummeted Sunday morning.
Despite farmers fearing their harvests could be destroyed, experts said most produced seemed to survive the overnight chill.
Charles Lapradd is the Agricultural Manager for Miami-Dade County.
“It’s not as bad as it could’ve been,” he said. “Fortunately this was a drier air mass that came through.”
While it will still take several days to know the full impact of the colder weather, Lapradd said tender crops will be some of the most affected.
“We’ve got to look at this over the next week period,” he said, “So, green beans is one of our most tender items that we grow. We grow a loot of green beans. We’re one of the largest producers of green beans in the country. Also Squash, yellow squash and zucchini are all very tender plants.”
Staff members at Redland Nursery are using plastic covers to protect their most expensive plants.
“First, we put on the plastics to keep the heat in,” said Tino Alvarez of Redland Nursery. “And once we turn on the water, it’s warm and we’ll heat up the air.”
No matter how much preparation, farmers such as Sam Accursio know they are at the mercy of Mother Nature.
“That would be the most devastating part come Monday morning if 100% where we’re standing is dead,” he said.