{"id":53162,"date":"2025-01-06T19:37:44","date_gmt":"2025-01-07T00:37:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=53162"},"modified":"2025-01-06T19:38:16","modified_gmt":"2025-01-07T00:38:16","slug":"freezing-temperatures-means-strawberry-and-citrus-growers-are-at-risk-of-losing-millions-of-dollars-of-crops","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2025\/01\/06\/freezing-temperatures-means-strawberry-and-citrus-growers-are-at-risk-of-losing-millions-of-dollars-of-crops\/","title":{"rendered":"Freezing temperatures means strawberry and citrus growers are at risk of losing millions of dollars of crops"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

They can burn strawberry plants, especially the more fragile flowers, which produce berries. Vice President of Parkesdale Farms, Matt Parke, said that future berry is what he and his team are trying to protect.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Farms near Plant City, Fla.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

\u201cRight now, we\u2019re just trying to protect flowers, and that\u2019s the most detrimental part of the plant. That\u2019s the most tender part. If it gets damaged, then that fruit will be unmarketable, and we\u2019ll lose the crop,\u201d said Parke.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To prevent his nearly 1,000 acres of strawberries from being destroyed, Parke has begun checking that all equipment is working properly, including sprinklers and diesel pumps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201cWe just have to be prepared and we\u2019re going to stay up the next couple nights to make sure that we\u2019re doing everything we do to follow through,\u201d said Parke.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He says if temps drop down to 32 degrees, the overhead irrigation will be turned on to make a thin layer of ice on top of the plant to keep it warmer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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\u201cIt acts like an igloo effect or like a cooler. If you want to keep something cold you put it in a cooler, but also, if you want to keep something warm, you put it in a cooler. So, what we\u2019re doing is we’re making a layer of ice over top to keep it from getting frost damage,\u201d said Parke.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not just strawberry farmers. Citrus growers are also on high alert.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe’re going to have a long night ahead of us monitoring the temperature,\u201d said Roy Petteway, owner of Petteway Groves Service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A dip in temperature for too long can damage citrus fruit and the tree itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRight now, our biggest concern is if we have that long-standing cold. That cold that sets in for 3, 4, 5, 6 hours at night,\u201d Petteway said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Similar to strawberries, irrigation techniques can insulate citrus fruits and protect them from freezing temps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Petteway said recent hurricanes have already made it a challenging harvest season. Any more damage to his crop would ultimately mean people who drink Florida orange juice would have to pay more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re hoping it\u2019s not going to be a bad night for us. We’re hoping that we\u2019re going to be able to keep working and keep providing wonderful quality beverage and quality OJ for everybody,\u201d Petteway said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

They can burn strawberry plants, especially the more fragile flowers, which produce berries. Vice President of Parkesdale Farms, Matt Parke, said that future berry is what he and his team… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":53164,"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":"9","_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":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyNVwvMDFcL2Rvd25sb2FkLTQud2VicD9maXQ9MjU5JTJDMTk1JnNzbD0xIiwidHh0IjoiRnJlZXppbmcgdGVtcGVyYXR1cmVzIG1lYW5zIHN0cmF3YmVycnkgYW5kIGNpdHJ1cyBncm93ZXJzIGFyZSBhdCByaXNrIG9mIGxvc2luZyBtaWxsaW9ucyBvZiBkb2xsYXJzIG9mIGNyb3BzIiwidGVtcGxhdGUiOiJoaWdod2F5IiwiYmxvZ19pZCI6MTYzMDQwNjYxfQ.YB8334OVqq5HtiQNct1BENHBA3nC4mOaBKj1lFRt2WUMQ"},"version":2,"attached_media":[{"id":53164,"url":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/download-4.webp","type":"image\/jpeg"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[9],"tags":[10709],"class_list":["post-53162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","tag-freezing-temperatures-means-strawberry-and-citrus-growers-are-at-risk-of-losing-millions-of-dollars-of-crops"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53162","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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53162"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53162\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53166,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53162\/revisions\/53166"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}