As Mercury Falls, Army of Crop Protectors Rises

There was a time when all farmers could do was talk about the weather. Nowadays many are doing something about it.

Most growers head for their groves or fields when a freeze alert is issued by the National Weather Service. As the mercury drops into the 20s, heaters are fueled and lighted, sprinklers are turned on, and, when available, wind machines are employed to circulate air and break up pockets of cold that settle in low-lying areas.

In recent years, the helicopter has entered the fight, providing mobile wind machines that hover above frost-threatened crops and prevent losses in the millions of dollars.

Ivor Shier, president of Corporate Helicopters, is a veteran in the cold control corps. He and his workers have spent two long nights this week in the Coachella Valley, herding warm air to grapevines and other valuable crops. Working about 75 feet up, they provide enough circulation to keep frost from settling but not enough to harm foliage or fruit.

The job is exacting, stressful, tiring and boring, Shier acknowledged. Pilots must maneuver in the dark, watching for power poles, other helicopters and changes in temperature and altitude as well as listening to radio instructions from ground crews.

From dark to dawn Wednesday and Thursday nights, 35 helicopter pilots worked to thwart arctic cold in the Coachella Valley, Shier said, and the cost was not low: about $7,000 per helicopter per night.

“We think of ourselves as insurance policies and well worth it,” Shier said. “Without us, they could have lost a crop worth a quarter of a million dollars.”

Bill Snodgrass, county assistant agricultural commissioner, said the new methods of frost prevention all have hefty price tags. The cost of heating greenhouses, fueling wind machines and continuously pumping water through sprinklers on cold nights rises as the temperature falls, he pointed out.

The time-tested method of covering plants with burlap or plastic has recently been modernized in the form of a spray-on coating, an Evergreen Nursery spokesman said. Both methods seem to have protected the firm’s stock from the record cold, he said, although damage may not appear for several days after a freeze.

In addition, bacterial applications that promise frost resistance for a variety of crops are now in the experimental stage. University of California agricultural extension specialists are working with the most recent frost- and freeze-protection method.