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Citrus Trade Group Thinks Growers Weathered Freeze

Tribune photo by ROBERT BURKE.

Ice coats oranges at a grove on County Road 672 in Balm.

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By KEITH MORELLI and JOSH POLTILOVE of The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 3, 2008

Updated: 01/03/2008 04:52 pm

PLANT CITY - Under a freezing crescent moon and an ice-cold indigo sky, Bob McDowell leaned over to inspect an icicled sprinkler. His goal: Save every strawberry at the 200-acre Fancy Farms, east of Plant City.

Like hundreds of farmers in the area, McDowell won't know until later today whether he'll see results from the late night and early morning he spent guarding the crops from the season's first freeze.

One thing is for sure, though: The temperature dipped to a record low for the day in Lakeland, at 27 degrees, a number matched in Brooksville and New Port Richey. And it'll be chilly again tonight: A low of 38 and wind chill of 33 in Tampa, with freeze warnings from 1 a.m. to 9 a.m. in Citrus, Hernando, Sumter and Levy counties.

It was cold enough this morning for Progress Energy Florida to predict the highest energy use ever for its 35-county region, including parts of Pasco and Pinellas. That didn't come to pass, but an estimated 300 customers in the two counties lost power for a time this morning, and, scattered across the Tampa Electric Co. service area, about 650 customers were without power.

One thing for sure, though, the coldest morning this winter dipped to a record low for the day in Lakeland at 27 degrees a temperature matched in Brooksville, New Port Richey and other areas across the Tampa Bay region.

It was cold enough for Progress Energy Florida to predict the highest energy use ever for its 35-county region, including parts of Pasco and Pinellas. That didn't come to pass, but an estimated 300 customers in the two counties lost power for a time this morning, and scattered across the Tampa Electric Co. service area, about 650 customers were still without power.

Citrus growers breathed a sigh of relief at midmorning with the announcement by the trade group Florida Citrus Mutual in Lakeland that the region's crop emerged largely unscathed.

Winds exceeding 20 mph in some areas dropped feels-like temperatures into the teens. But just before dawn, the wind died down. That was good news for farmers who needed an uninterrupted spray of water to coat the fragile berry plants and create a layer of protective ice.

In a biting chill, his coat crusted with ice, McDowell talked quietly about his tasks as the "tsh, tsh, tsh" of thousands of sprinkler heads spewed water behind him.

"There will be some damage," he said, "but everything went well. There were no hiccups."

A blast of arctic air hit the Tampa Bay area full force late last night and early this morning, marking the first freeze of the season, albeit a couple degrees less severe than forecast. It'll be chilly again tonight, but about 8 or degrees warmer than this morning, forecasters say. A high of 54 was predicted for Tampa.

Progress Energy predicted peak energy usage between 7 and 8 a.m. as people prepared for work.

"We are a winter-peaking utility," said Buddy Eller, spokesman for the utility, which serves 1.7 million customers in Florida. "Obviously the cold weather is driving energy use for us."

But demand for power from the St. Petersburg-based utility was less than expected. It turned out that customer usage was well below the utility's peak consumption record of Jan. 24, 2003, the company said. The company did not have specific figures immediately available for power demand this morning.

Tampa Electric also reported that no records were set for power usage as the blast of cold air from Canada swept across Central Florida. The company was not expecting a record to be set today.

Progress Energy is the state's second-largest electric utility, serving nearly 1.7 million customers. Tampa Electric provides power to about 650,000 customers in Hillsborough County and parts of Pasco, Polk and Pinellas counties.

At 5 a.m., Tampa was at a brisk 31 degrees and hunkering down under an 8 mph north wind that brought the wind chill temperature down to the upper teens, said Brian Lamarre, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Ruskin.

A hard freeze warning remained in effect across the Bay area until 9 a.m., Lamarre said. Temperatures will rebound to 50 or so degrees this afternoon.

He said the lows Friday morning will average 8 or 9 degrees higher across the Bay area.

As the morning warmed up, strawberry growers were more concerned with how long their crops endured temperatures in the 30s.

In an interview at 5 a.m., Fancy Farms owner Carl Grooms was worried about the wind playing havoc with sprinkler patterns.

"It's cold," he said. "The winds are blowing 10 to 15 mph, and that's not a good thing. It's been 27 degrees here since 11 p.m."

The crop, he said, "is not getting good, even spray. We can't tell how severe it is until the sun comes up and we can look at the pattern. There are some reports of some growers having icicles forming on sprinkler heads."

In Ruskin, Mike Norton's fish may have fared a bit better. Norton, owner of Norton's Tampa Bay Fisheries, was busy packing fish to ship early this morning. It was business as usual, with workers filling 150 boxes containing tens of thousands of fish to a PetSmart in Phoenix.

"It's still a little early to tell," he said. "But I don't think it got as cold as we expected here. We won't know until a couple of days, until the sun comes up and everything comes to top. Everything is at the bottom now, trying to keep warm."

Norton has 80 ponds in which he grows tropical fish. Sixty-five of the ponds were covered with plastic to keep the warmth in.

The water temperature dropped to the 60s, he said, and if it gets into the 50s, that could be fatal, especially for the cold-sensitive South American cichlids.

Ruskin has hundreds of tropical fish ponds. The Bay area supplies about 80 percent of the nation's demand. It takes a lot to kill the fish, which include loaches, danios, swordtails and cichlids that grow in Norton's ponds, he said.

"Ninety-five percent of what we raise usually survives the cold," he said.

The ponds that have plastic covering remain warm inside, he said. Other ponds have well water at a constant 72 degrees pumped into them during cold spells.

"We'll have some losses," Norton said.

Many citrus growers, though, are breathing a sigh of relief.

Citrus Mutual officials canvassed a broad network of growers early Thursday and found little evidence of fruit damage and no evidence of tree damage, said Andrew Meadows, the organization's director of communications.

"This is good news for growers, good news for consumers and good news for the state of Florida," said Michael W. Sparks, executive vice president-chief executive officer of Florida Citrus Mutual. "Mother Nature cut us a break this time, and now we can continue to produce the quality citrus crop Florida is known for."

Reporters Billy Townsend and Russell Ray contributed to this report. Reporter Keith Morelli can be reached at (813) 259-7760 or kmorelli@tampatrib.com. Reporter Josh Poltilove can be reached at (813) 259-7691 or jpoltilove@tampatrib.com.

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