IHT: Freezing temperatures destroy most of California citrus crop

[Xipe Totec]

Associated Press, Via International Herald Tribune

SAN FRANCISCO: Three nights of freezing temperatures have destroyed up to three-quarters of California's $1 billion (€770 million) citrus crop, according to an estimate issued as forecasters warned the weather could continue.

Other crops, including avocados and strawberries, also have suffered damage, agricultural officials said Monday.

"This is one of those freezes that, unfortunately, we'll all remember," said A.G. Kawamura, secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture.

The latest freeze will likely surpass the damage done by a three-day cold snap in December 1998 that destroyed 85 percent of California's citrus crop, a loss valued at $700 million, Kawamura said.


http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/01/16/america/NA-GEN-US-Citrus-Cold-Snap.php

[MadMaddie]

1. Which means we will be eating oranges from Australia...

[Xipe Totec]

3. Clementines from Spain...

But the price...

[kestrel91316]

37. Nope. I will do without. So should you. EAT LOCALLY, or as

locally as possible.

The damaged oranges will go for juice. Better you buy frozen OJ from American oranges than buy oranges from overseas.

It won't kill us.

Edited for clarity

[Cleita]

2. Oh God it's been cold. My pelargonium (geraniums) are

very sad looking. Ordinarily they thrive like weeds here. When I drive by the fields everything is wilted. We are supposed to be having rain now and then we get a kind of cold snap in April that sets the fruit trees. Everything is upside down now.

[Xipe Totec]

4. Double whammy,

First, the weather.

Then: "Growers hurried to pick as much fruit as possible before the chilly weather hit Friday, but an industry labor shortage meant much of the $960 million (€741.8 million) crop went unharvested, LoBue said."

Gee, I wonder what happened to all the labor... :eyes:

[Cleita]

6. Yep, the labor is all gone it seems. n/t

[hatrack]

10. Of course, John McCain said Americans wouldn't pick fruit for $50/hour

Hmm . . . I wonder why those growers had problems finding labor . . .

:eyes:

[aquart]

15. Did anyone advertise fruit-picking at $50 an hour?

I believe I might apply.

[Theres-a]

36. Me too!

Heck, I'd do it for $25!

[aquart]

14. We're just so endlessly clever.

[Lasher]

26. Your California weather got delivered here to West Virginia by mistake

I haven't had to start a fire or use any other source of heat for about 5 days. The ground isn't even frozen and I worked outside yesterday in a t shirt. I've never seen weather anything like this and I've lived all of my 58 years (as of today) right here. It's usually cold as a Republican's heart until the end of March or so.

I must say I am enjoying this right now but the bugs are going to be a big problem this summer.

[Thor_MN]

28. Happy Birthday, Lasher

Send some of that warm towards Minnesota, if you would. It's been a very mild winter until now. 5 below at the minute and the furnace is running like natural gas was free - I don't want to open the next gas bill....

[Lasher]

32. Why thank you Thor.

Wow, those prices are terrible, and I live in the middle of a natural gas field. Looks like they've about doubled since Junior's been in office. Go figure.

http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/ng/ng_pri_sum_dcu_nus_a.htm

I hauled in 10 truckloads of firewood this year and I've been using a woodburning firplace insert to heat the house so that the gas furnace isn't needed. It's sometimes surprising what that little stove can do. This has the potential to save me around $100 a month during the November - April heating season, depending on how cold it gets.

I would send you some warmth if I could but warm wishes are the best I can offer. :pals:

[Cleita]

39. That's one good thing here in CA. I fight spiders for control of

my house all year around. It seems they have all gone either into hibernation or died with this freezing snap, flying bugs too. I can leave the door open and nothing flies in. I didn't even have to put the flea and tick meds on the cat this month.

Have a happy belated birthday, too.

[kestrel91316]

40. Yep. Those damned Argentine ants have vanished, too!

[Cleita]

48. They're underground right now. I just dug up a nest of them

yesterday, when I went to plant a bare root rose bush. So I have put out the bait and that's one less nest in my yard, however, they always come back. :-(

[Lasher]

41. Maybe the spiders are not so bad.

After all, they are there to eat insects. But I can relate. Mrs. Lasher is deathly afraid of even the smallest spider. I got a great big plastic spider once and put it in the silverware drawer, heh heh. If given a choice I just move them outside without hurting them, but that's just me. I wouldn't be so kind to them if I came across poisinous ones like the Black Widow or Brown Recluse.

I love living here in my little hillbilly homestead but California is great too - and in totally different ways. Every single place I've been in your state was just beautiful.

Looks like the warm spell is over. I just fired up the stove.

Thanks for the birthday wishes.

Lasher

[Cleita]

46. LOL! I don't evict all of them. I allow one or two webs of harmless

species of spiders where visitors can't see them because they do catch the flying insects. However, most of them get relocated outdoors, especially the black widows, who are welcome in my garden, but not my house. I have never seen a brown recluse spider here and hope I never do.

:scared:

[eowyn_of_rohan]

50. Here in Wisconsin, my geraniums started coming up

...after Christmas. Yes, up is down, down is up :shrug:

[Olney Blue]

5. This is really bad news.

[kineneb]

7. It has been damned cold

ok, for California it has been damned cold...
not only is the crop loss serious, but on a human level- some folks no doubt have frozen to death, being either homeless or without heat...

others have had their pipes freeze and then burst...

[kestrel91316]

42. Pipes are freezing and breaking all over Los Angeles, and the leaked

water is getting into the streets and frezing there. Some freeways have had to be closed due to ice (we have no way to deal with icy roads here). Emergency rooms are completely filled up with people with broken bones from slipping on ice - apparently a lot of folks here have no clue that you have to walk a little differently on ice, or better yet stay off it.............

[Gormy Cuss]

44. What some in colder parts of the country may not register is that our housing isn't built for this.

The R factor of the insulation is low, many houses have single pane windows, and our pipes aren't running through insulated basements. Our cold snap is warmer than normal winters for much of the country but in those areas their houses are usually equipped to deal with it.

Many people here also don't know how to avoid burst pipes either. At temps in the teens leaving the water running at a trickle, leaving the doors open on the sink cabinets overnight, or wrapping outside bibs in towels adhered with duck tape may be all that's needed to avoid problems.

It's a mess and the citrus crop is shot. I'm glad that I hauled in big baskets off my trees before the cold snap. Looks like this week I'll be clearing out the rest and freezing juice.

[kineneb]

53. that's the point

At least our house is relatively well insulated, but most houses in California, especially SoCal, are simply not designed to go thorough long periods of freezing weather. Even here, in the foothills (Lake Co.), people and business have had major plumbing failures due to the cold. I don't think we have had much damage to our agricultural plants, since most here need the cold (pears, walnuts, grapes).

A friend was telling the sad tale of damage to one of his church's buildings: the fire suppression pipes in the ceiling broke and flooded the building. They had difficulty clearing out the water, because as they were pushing it outside, it would freeze again.

"The R factor of the insulation is low, many houses have single pane windows, and our pipes aren't running through insulated basements."
Exactly. In fact, most homes here do not have basements,due to soil factors or drainage. (Local joke, Q: What do you call a basement in Northern California? A: An indoor swimming pool.)

[LiberalFighter]

8. It's Arnold Schwarzenager's fault

[951-Riverside]

9. Damn global warming n/t

[msongs]

11. all our citrus/avocados are fine - the hibiscus and plumeria look sad tho

but a good haricut in the spring and they will bounce back.

Msongs
www.msongs.com
batik & digital art

[Psephos]

13. Hibiscus "wilts" below 40 degrees, but no harm done unless it freezes

They'll bounce back as it warms up. It seems it's their roots that are most sensitive, so sometimes you can prevent the droop by pouring lukewarm water at the base of the plant.

My Michigan balcony-dwelling hibiscus are waaaaay tougher than your wimpy California hibiscus. lol

Peace.

[Cleita]

16. Last couple of nights it's been below 30 for a few hours where I live here

on the coast. I'm sure there would be snow and frost if we had anything that resembled moisture.

[Psephos]

21. Brrrrr

I guess I better forget about going to Cali this winter. At least Miami's still above freezing. :-)

Seriously, good luck with that.

Peace.

[antiimperialist]

20. Are you a global warming denier?

Just curious.

[Hekate]

22. That's a weird question. I live on Calif's Central Coast too, and it got down to 25 last night

In other parts of Santa Barbara county, the temp was in the teens. And it is DRY. Dry, dry, dry. High fire danger.

A burst pipe at the jr. high school last night is being blamed on the freeze. That's beyond bizarre to me -- our pipes have no business freezing here.

You don't have to "deny global warming" to recognize a bad weather system when you experience it. We can joke about being unused to the kind of winters that are the norm in other parts of the country, but I may lose the fruit trees I have planted in half-barrels -- and the farmers are losing a lot more than that.

One feature of global warming seems to be erratic weather patterns and extremes of weather.

Hekate

[Cleita]

38. I'm up the coast from you in San Luis Obispo county and

it's been cold. I even had to break down and turn on the heater for a couple of hours.

[kestrel91316]

43. GW >>>>> widespread climate change/destabilization >>>>>

recordbreaking weather of all sorts: highs and lows, drought and flood.

But I think you knew that.

[Wheezy]

12. Phoenix too

It's been below freezing for a few nights. Very bad for the citrus - lemons, limes, oranges, and also avacados. My ficus tree leaves are turning red...as if it's fall in the north, or something.

[Bobbieo]

18. Same with Yuma - It's has been freezing for two nites!!!

Been many years since we have had frost.

[kskiska]

17. This shouldn't bother the FReeps at all.

They've said they'd gladly pay more for their lettuce as long as the migrants were deported.

Funny how they object to paying more for their Big Macs, though, due to the minimum wage being increased.

[XemaSab]

19. The banana trees all look like hell here

I hope no farmers are driven out of business by this. :(

[musiclawyer]

52. Bananas won't die

They look bad, bad when they sense a freeze they just shut down until spring. Peel away the dead leaves when it starts getting warm.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

23. I just got back from Canada...

I got back from being in Canada on business on Thursday and it was actually warmer in Canada in January than it was in Santa Ana.

I am headed back to Canada next week so I left my winter stuff there, first stop was the Steve and Barry's to grab a winter coat to manage until then!

Although me and my girlfriend went to disney on Saturday and it was just about deserted, and that was suprising considering MLK day made it a long weekend.

[barb162]

24. It doesn't kill the trees though,does it?

[mcscajun]

31. No, it hasn't yet killed the trees, thankfully.

The farmers right now are in salvage mode; many of the damaged fruits will be good for the juice market, and they were already harvesting everything they could ahead of the freeze, so there'll be some eating oranges from California in markets for about a week or so.

If they get another freeze, who knows?

[Nothing Without Hope]

25. ***Big article and video link for this in the LA TIMES today:***

Here's an excerpt from the article - I recommend going to the site and watching the video too.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-cold16jan16,0,1123360,full.story?coll=la-home-headlines

$1.1-BILLION ORANGE CROP IS SEVERELY DAMAGED
Freeze will mean 'much higher prices' for many vegetables and fruits.

By Sharon Bernstein, David Pierson and Jerry Hirsch, Times Staff Writers
January 16, 2007

As much as 70% of oranges still on California trees may have been destroyed by record cold temperatures across the state, officials and farmers said Monday.

It will take days to make a full assessment of the losses to the $1.1-billion orange crop. But the state's top agriculture official said Monday that damage to fruit and vegetable crops overall will be greater and more widespread than in the devastating freeze of 1998, which destroyed $700 million worth of produce across California.


"This cold incident will surpass the 1998-99 freeze," said A.G. Kawamura, secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture. Losses, although greatest in the San Joaquin Valley, seem to be spread through many parts of the state that typically have been immune to freezes, he said, "from San Diego … to the coast."

In addition to citrus fruits, growers are reporting damage to other crops, including leafy greens, avocados, strawberries and blueberries, said Kawamura, who has spent the last few days visiting farms from Fresno to Ventura.

(snip)

[JCMach1]

27. It can indeed kill the trees

This happened to the Florida Citrus industry with a couple of horrific freezes in the 1980's.

The citrus industry shifted much further south.

[Marrah_G]

29. On the flipside

I have flowers BLOOMING.... yes actual full blooms on two in my rock garden. I live 45 minutes south of Boston. Talk about freaky weather.... I have never seen anything like this before.

[Le Taz Hot]

30. The farmers' worries are now extended

beyond this years' crop, which is lost. They're now worried about saving the trees. I'm in the Central San Joaquin Valley and this area is already economically depressed. . . always has been. Most jobs are directly or indirectly related to agriculture. Loss of the crops (citrus, avacados, strawberries) is bad enough but if they lose the trees I can't even imagine what the impact will be.

[slackmaster]

33. A round of Orange Juliuses for the house

:argh:

[AngryAmish]

34. Way to go, Bush!

[doodadem]

35. We're freezing our asses off here in central Calif.!

We're in the mountains above the San Joaquin Valley (Citrus Central), about 2,000 feet elevation. Usually in winter, we can walk outside, sunny 50-60 degrees, and admire the snow on the big mountains above us in the Parks. We've been getting temps in the teens at night, and an inch of snow last week. Pipes busting everywhere, the washer froze up. And they're saying it's going to be this way pretty much the rest of the month. Yikes!

The good thing is, we're still getting our normal greening up for this time of year here. This is when everything turns a miraculous, vibrant shade of green. We have huge boulder outcroppings in several places on our ranch in very wooded areas, and they get very mossy, where it all looks like something out of Lord of the Rings. My early narcissus are still blooming......

[Duer 157099]

45. I brought my lemon and lime trees into the garage

And every time I go into the garage from the house, they're sitting right there and it looks to me like they're thinking "aww c'mon, can't we come into the HOUSE?" (it's still cold in the garage)

I might put a blanket over them tonight :)

[sakabatou]

47. I've had to wear a sweatshirt to bed at night...

IT'S THAT COLD!

[Cleita]

49. Me too, in spite of the electric blanket and cat to keep me warm!

I'm wearing clothes these days I haven't worn since I lived in the Idaho panhandle.

[High Plains]

51. All your citrus are belong to us!