Cold Snap’s Cost Hits $11 Million for Growers in Ventura County

Crop damage from the cold snap that ended last week has grown to more than $11 million in Ventura County and is still rising, but the few remaining farmers in the San Fernando Valley area suffered few losses, according to agricultural officials and growers.

“As each day goes by, more and more damage seems to be showing up” to citrus fruits, avocados and strawberries, Ventura County Agriculture Commissioner Earl McPhail reported. By the end of last week, the total had reached “a little over $11 million, but I have a feeling that will go up 25% to 100%,” he said.

“It may wind up close to $20 million.”

It was the first crop-damaging freeze since January, 1979, when the county’s farmers suffered $32 million in damage.

Unlike many previous freezes, this episode did more damage along the coast--which is usually warmed by ocean air--than inland, McPhail said.

Many Growers Prepared

“The strange thing about this one was that a lot of damage occurred in what we call ‘the banana belts,’ places right along the coast and in an area just east of Santa Paula that even in earlier freezes didn’t have any problems,” he said. “But growers in areas that historically have had freezing problems were better off this time because they were equipped with the means to protect themselves--fans, orchard heaters and water sprays.”

He said temperatures of 20 to 25 degrees were common, and the mercury dropped as low as 17 degrees in some areas during the cold snap that lasted six days and ended on Wednesday.

He estimated losses to the avocado crop at $2.86 million, to oranges at $2.93 million, lemons at $2.32 million, strawberries at $900,000, broccoli at $724,000, spinach at $320,000 and $1.3 million damage to nursery stock--ornamental flowers, shrubs, bushes and trees.

County’s Largest Industry

Agriculture is Ventura County’s largest industry, earning about $600 million a year. Lemons, the most important crop, bring in about $116 million, strawberries about $60 million and oranges about $57 million.

In Los Angeles County, John Manning, chief deputy to Agricultural Commissioner Paul Engler, said “the San Fernando Valley did pretty well as far as crop damage was concerned.

“There was a little wind in the Valley and most of the strawberries there escaped without serious damage. The wind chill factor makes people think it’s colder in the wind, but it actually keeps plants warmer.

“In the county at large, we experienced about $400,000 damage to nursery stock but the damage was mainly in the San Gabriel Valley area, to tropical stock, things like banana trees and hibiscus. They lost about $20,000 worth of flowers in the Dominguez Hills area, but damage to the nursery stocks in the San Fernando Valley area wasn’t too bad.”

Damage was slight in the Valley in part because, with the exception of strawberries, most local crops are not vulnerable at this time of the year, growers said. Either there were no plants in the field--as was the case with sweet corn, the largest commercial crop still grown in the Valley--or they were in a dormant, winter state, protected from damage.

Leaf Damage Reported

Felix A. Tapia, who with his father grows several crops in the Sepulveda Basin alongside the Ventura Freeway in Encino, said the frost “did a little leaf damage to our strawberries and set them back, time-wise.”

The damage will delay the next crop by “about three weeks,” he said, but that is not as serious “as a black frost, which kills the plants in the ground. We were afraid of that for a while there.”

There was no damage to the seven-acre citrus orchard at Pierce College in Woodland Hills, a last remnant of the orchards which covered large portions of the Valley in the 1920s and 1930s.

“The trees are on slopes where the coldest air drains down onto lower-lying land and so we didn’t have a problem,” said Frank Baugh, assistant dean for agriculture.

“It would have to get down below 25 here before we’d have any damage.”