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Bountiful Berries On Ice

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By JAN HOLLINGSWORTH, The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 9, 2008

PLANT CITY - It is a sight familiar to East Hillsborough early birds who rise in time to see strawberry fields and orange groves transformed on some winter days into sparkling ice sculptures.

On Thursday, even those who slept in had a chance to see the dazzling ice displays, unmelted by the noonday sun.

The biggest chill of the season - and perhaps the decade - brought winds that gave growers a fitful night and the fields an enduring cap of crystals - some smooth, others wildly asymmetrical from wind-blown sprinklers.

"That's where the real problem comes in. You can't get the even distribution of the water," said Carl Grooms, who spent a sleepless night trying to protect 200 acres of berries near the Polk County line.

Citrus Mutual reported the state's oranges weathered the freeze relatively unscathed. Strawberries, however, emerged with mixed results.

"We do believe we had some damage, but we don't believe it's extensive at this point," said Gary Wishnatzki, president and CEO of Wishnatzki Farms.

It would take days to assess the extent of the damage to fragile blooms and ripe berries, the two stages most vulnerable to the freeze. In some cases, though, the toll was obvious, with plants that didn't receive a protective coat of ice severely burned by the freeze.

Temperatures plunged as low as 21 degrees at Joel Connell's Wilder Road farm northeast of Plant City. Connell, like Grooms, kept his sprinklers spraying for 12 hours once the mercury dipped below 33.

"We made good ice," Connell said. "I imagine we'll see some damage, but nothing devastating."

Others in the winter berry capital were not so lucky.

A broken 10-inch mainline at one of Parkesdale Farms' fields put 21 acres of berries at risk.

Gary Parke, who helped his brother, Bobby, through the emergency at the family farm, estimated 20 percent or more of the crop suffered from the temporary loss of water.

Other growers experienced isolated problems with irrigation equipment: pumps that wouldn't crank up, sprinkler heads that iced up and, in one case, a small operation that lost power when the farm went off the grid during a local outage.

Shawn Crocker, the new president of the Florida Strawberry Growers Association, spent the night learning the tricks of the trade at Astin Farms off State Road 39.

Thursday morning he was collecting reports from area growers.

"Everybody in general avoided the catastrophic one," he said. "But I think you're going to see a supply shortage for the next three to six weeks."

Wishnatzki, who runs the largest berry brokerage in the state, said the supply will be something of a roller coaster.

"We'll experience a very short-term dip in volume this week, with normal supplies the next three weeks," he said.

Another dip in volume will coincide with when the blooms damaged last week would have produced ripened fruit a month or so from now.

Barring another freeze, supplies will return to normal by the time the Florida Strawberry Festival rolls around Feb. 28.

It will affect Valentine's Day, though, a big holiday for berries from retailers' point of view.

All in all, Wishnatzki said, "We were very fortunate."

The long night was the coldest growers have endured since 2003, Crocker said. The last time the area saw this combination of cold plus wind was 1995. This event pales in comparison to the catastrophic Christmas freeze of 1989, though, when the mercury plunged below freezing and stayed there for two days.

Connell, who has been in the business for six years, has not experienced the fabled freezes of decades past.

"This is the worst I've seen," he said. "Hopefully it's the worst I see for a while."

Reporter Jan Hollingsworth can be reached at (813)865-4436 or jhollingsworth@tampatrib.com.

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