Freeze Loss for Growers May Reach $24 Million

Ventura County farming officials estimate that millions of dollars in damage occurred to the area’s strawberry and citrus crops as the result of freezing temperatures last week.

The county agricultural commissioner’s office this week began assessing damage and inspecting fruit in the fields and packinghouses.

“Obviously the damage will be severe,” said Tom McGrath, who grows strawberries on 100 acres on the Oxnard Plain. “We’ll have a pretty good idea in two to three weeks as the berries mature how bad it is.”

Because strawberry plants, which were hit hardest by the freeze a week ago, continue to produce from January through July, the agricultural commissioner’s office set early loss estimates at 5% to 10% of the total berry crop, or about $24 million.

If oranges and lemons were hurt, the damage will not show until the fruit is cut open, said David Buettner, chief deputy agriculture commissioner.

The damage occurred in the last hour before dawn on Feb. 15 as temperatures dipped to 21 degrees, said Terry Schaeffer, agricultural meteorologist for the National Weather Service. While growers feared the potential damage of the freeze, they cheered the rain that began Friday and lasted through Sunday.

“Even if there were potential damage to the crops from rain we wouldn’t care because we need the rain so badly,” McGrath said.

The rain, while substantial, was enough to bring the county up to only 48% of its normal rainfall total for this time of year, said Dolores Taylor, county hydrologist.

The storm dropped nearly four inches of rain at Matilija Dam above Ojai, typically the wettest spot in the county, and more than an inch in Ventura, Taylor said. It was the second large storm of the season.

“It still brought less than we needed,” Taylor said. “We’ve still got a long way to go yet.” Ideally, Taylor said, the county would receive three more storms bringing two inches each.

“But if we got it all at once, as long as there was no death or destruction, that would be OK too,” she said.

The county’s fourth year of drought could be eased somewhat next week if a new storm arrives as predicted.

Schaeffer predicts that warmer temperatures in the 60s on the coast and 70s inland late this week will give way to cooler weather and more rain by Monday.

Growers welcome rain as both an end to drought conditions that plague the county and as protection against frost. Moisture, either falling or in the ground, keeps ground temperatures up and lessens the chance of a hard freeze, Schaeffer said.

In the weeks leading up to last week’s freeze, the ground was dry and the sky was clear, Schaeffer said. There was no cloud cover to hold in warm air.

“It was a bad frost,” McGrath said. “It was the kind where we had no ceiling, so that any type of protection from heaters or wind machines was ineffective.”