Sheriff Asks Disaster Declaration for County : Freeze: Crop losses may reach $100 million, agriculture officials say, with lemon orchards alone totaling $38 million in fruit destroyed by cold.

Acting in his role as director of disaster services, Sheriff John Gillespie declared Ventura County a disaster area Friday, the first step to obtaining emergency federal loans for area growers devastated by last weekend’s deep freeze.

County supervisors have tentatively scheduled a special session for Thursday to ratify the declaration, officials said. The declaration will then be sent to Sacramento where the governor will decide whether to forward the request for low-interest disaster relief loans to the federal government. Ten other counties are also considering declaring an emergency.

“Since agriculture is the No. 1 industry in Ventura County, this is truly a disaster,” Gillespie said Friday. “It’s as disastrous as if the county had burnt from wildfire or flooded.”

In preliminary estimates, agriculture officials set the loss to county crops at nearly $100 million, with the county’s valuable lemon orchards suffering the brunt at $38 million in lost fruit.

In other figures released Friday, agricultural officials estimated a $17.5-million loss of avocados, or about 32% of the county’s crop; a $16.5-million loss of Valencia oranges, or about 27% of the crop; a $7-million loss of nursery stock, about 7.5% of the crop; a $4-million loss in strawberries, 5% of the crop; a $4-million loss of celery, about 5% of the crop; and a $2.5-million loss in cut flowers, about 10% of the crop.

With another freeze expected to plunge temperatures into the mid- to low 20s tonight and Sunday night, losses may continue to climb, officials said.

A second Arctic air mass was expected to arrive late today, said National Weather Service agricultural meteorologist Terry Schaeffer. If the cold spots are restricted to the same inland areas of Ojai and Santa Paula that have already lost fruit, losses this weekend could be held to a minimum, Schaeffer said.

“Some areas did better than others,” he said.

But Schaeffer predicted that the extremely cold mass that he earlier had feared would move into Ventura County tonight will deliver only a “glancing blow” to the county before veering off to the agriculturally rich San Joaquin Valley that has already measured $75 million in damage to citrus crops alone.

Total losses to this year’s crops will not be known for another few months when growers determine how much of their young fruit is salvageable, said Deputy Agriculture Commissioner David Buettner. Growers say it will be two to three years before they can measure the long-term damage to trees, damage which will result in lower crop yields.

The county’s vegetable and other row crops, which lost only about 5% of their total value, fared better than citrus and avocados because the growing fields are in slightly warmer areas, Buettner said. In addition, many vegetable and row crops produce several harvests a year, with last weekend’s freeze having little or no impact on future crops.

The areas hardest hit by the freeze were in canyons near Santa Paula and the Ojai Valley, where a stagnant and frigid air mass settled on some of the county’s richest citrus and avocado orchards.

The Oxnard Plain, where much of the county’s broccoli, lettuce, celery and other row crops are cultivated, was spared the harshest temperatures, Buettner said.

Strawberry growers will lose most of the berries on plants that were already flowering, Buettner said, but that represents only about 5% of the total strawberry crop. The county produces berries from January through July.

Cut flowers, many of them grown in the Oxnard Plain and the Santa Clara River Valley which was also spared the hard freeze, suffered 10% loss, but baby’s breath fields were about 95% destroyed, Buettner said.

“It’s very susceptible to frost damage, so it won’t be back until Valentine’s Day,” he said.

Most nursery stock growers were able to protect their sensitive plants, he said, but the county’s $94-million-a-year industry still suffered a 7.5% loss, he said.

Friday marked the second time in three years that Ventura County has declared a disaster because of frost damage.

The county suffered more than $51 million in crop damage in 1987, Buettner said.

Another 10 counties statewide were preparing to declare emergencies, said Joe Bandy, regional coordinator for the California Department of Food and Agriculture in Sacramento.