{"id":28299,"date":"2022-12-27T16:36:07","date_gmt":"2022-12-27T21:36:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=28299"},"modified":"2022-12-27T16:36:14","modified_gmt":"2022-12-27T21:36:14","slug":"plant-city-strawberries-survive-christmas-weekend-cold-snap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2022\/12\/27\/plant-city-strawberries-survive-christmas-weekend-cold-snap\/","title":{"rendered":"Plant City strawberries survive Christmas weekend cold snap"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The livelihoods of local farmers were on the line throughout the frigid Christmas weekend in Tampa Bay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1110px) 100vw, 1110px\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/maxresdefault.jpg?resize=1024%2C576&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-28300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/maxresdefault.jpg?resize=1024%2C576&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/maxresdefault.jpg?resize=300%2C169&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/maxresdefault.jpg?resize=768%2C432&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/maxresdefault.jpg?w=1280&amp;ssl=1 1280w\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIt was a long cold weekend, got to enjoy Christmas like normal,\u201d said Matt Parke from Parkesdale Farm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Parke\u2019s family has harvested strawberries in Plant City for seven decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u00a0\u201cTimes have changed,\u201d Parke said. \u201cWhen we first got here there was no plastic on the field. They used to just grow on bare ground and irrigating wasn\u2019t a thing. We had pine needles that we used to cover the berry with to keep them from freezing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Over the years, the farm has expanded and the company now sells its precious fruit to major retailers like Walmart and Kroeger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After a day off for Christmas, the farm workers were back in the fields Monday to pick the ripe berries that survived the cold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI see a little bit of burn out there,\u201d Parke said, \u201cbut it\u2019s somewhere where the water wouldn\u2019t reach but nothing significant. It\u2019s very minor.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"700\" height=\"526\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1110px) 100vw, 1110px\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/p3-4.jpg?resize=700%2C526&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-28301\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/p3-4.jpg?w=700&amp;ssl=1 700w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/p3-4.jpg?resize=300%2C225&amp;ssl=1 300w\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Parke said his family business managed to protect and preserve most of its prized crop by activating the irrigation system overnight Friday and Saturday when the temperature dropped as low as 28 degrees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWhat it does is it kind of forms a layer of ice over the top of the berry,\u201d Parke explained. \u201cThink of it like an igloo, how an igloo somebody would stay inside of an igloo to stay warmer. The same thing is happening in our field. We\u2019re making a layer of ice to keep that berry warmer so it doesn\u2019t freeze and have damage on the fruit.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Parke said they were prepared to turn on the sprinklers for the third night in a row, but fortunately the temperature Sunday night stayed above 32 degrees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Just like the strawberries, Parke said he looks forward to more typical winter weather in Florida.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI\u2019m a Florida boy,\u201d he said. \u201cMy blood\u2019s ready for warm weather.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The livelihoods of local farmers were on the line throughout the frigid Christmas weekend in Tampa Bay. \u201cIt was a long cold weekend, got to enjoy Christmas like normal,\u201d said&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28300,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[4136],"class_list":["post-28299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news","tag-plant-city-strawberries-survive-christmas-weekend-cold-snap"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28299"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28299\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28303,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28299\/revisions\/28303"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}