Growers Start to Assess Freeze Damage

As the mercury threatened to again dip below the freezing mark, Ojai rancher Tony Thacher prepared to stay up all night fighting off the frost and limiting the damage caused by this week’s icy temperatures.

His main concern were the oranges struggling to turn ripe on his 100-acre farm, where he also grows tangerines and avocados.

A freeze Monday, which ushered in the first day of winter, left ice clinging to oranges and caused enough skin damage to leave the fruit unmarketable for anything but juice.

“They’ll be downgraded to juice-quality fruit,” Thacher said, “which is only worth about 10% to 15% of first-quality fruit.”

Freezing temperatures were expected overnight in cities including Ventura, Oxnard, Thousand Oaks and Simi Valley.

Temperatures in Ojai have been among the coldest in the county, hovering at 28 degrees for nearly seven hours early Tuesday before dropping to 24 degrees for about two hours, said Terry Schaeffer, a Santa Paula-based meteorologist who specializes forecasts for the agricultural industry.

But the cold snap could end as early as today, with temperatures creeping back up as a jet stream that is pushing the cold air into the area comes to an end, forecasters said.

Among the hardest hit this week have been lemon growers in the San Joaquin Valley, where an entire crop estimated at $90 million was lost. It’s the largest loss citrus growers have suffered since 1990, when sustained temperatures in the teens caused $800 million in damage to the state’s agriculture industry, more than $100 million of which occurring in Ventura County.

Local orange growers Tuesday said it could be a few days before they know how badly their crops were harmed. A damaged orange will dry up, and it takes a couple of days for that process to begin, said Dave Buettner, deputy county agriculture commissioner.

“We’ve already seen some wilting of leaves,” Buettner said, “but to see how much damage has been caused to the actual fruit takes some time.”

Still, agriculture authorities were optimistic that the damage was not significant, because subfreezing temperatures did not last long enough. Temperatures under 27 degrees for more than an hour usually bring some damage, Schaeffer said.

“Plants get stressed, and when they get stressed they can’t resist the cold,” Schaeffer said. “A healthy plant can resist cold much better than a stressed or sickly plant.”

On Thacher’s ranch, workers were taking as many precautions as possible Tuesday afternoon. Employee Felipe Estrada, 59, spent all day filling the ranch’s 250 citrus heaters with oil.

But because the oil is so expensive, the heaters will only be lighted if the temperature drops to 25 degrees, Estrada said. Then the heaters will run until they are out of fuel and Estrada will refill them.

Other measures that ranchers rely on when the mercury falls below 27 degrees is to use windmills to stir up the air, which creates some heat. And ranchers also spray ground water onto the trees. The water holds some heat, making it more difficult for the citrus to freeze.

Estrada and Thacher have gone without sleep in order to monitor temperatures since the threat of cold weather began early Monday. They are tired, but until the cold weather passes, “We have to work,” Estrada said.

“Most don’t have enough labor to deal with something like this,” Thacher said. “So, yeah, we have to stay awake. This is my income. We drink lots of coffee. But it’s pretty cold, so we don’t have a tendency to fall asleep.”

Thacher, however, said he considered the freeze only a minor scare.

“This has been just a fairly marginal freeze compared to what happened in 1990,” Thacher said.

The county’s nurseries--with their young, sensitive plants and trees--also saw some damage because of the cold temperatures.

At Valley Crest Tree Co. in Fillmore, which grows ornamental plants for landscaping, Monday’s frost left some New Zealand Christmas trees unsalable for six months, said Asst. Production Manager David Teuschler.

But 85% of the overall stock had not been damaged. Teuschler is using 250 diesel heaters on the remaining plants.

Strawberries on the Oxnard Plain, where temperatures have not dipped quite as low, appear to have been unaffected by the cold spell.

Some discoloration was found on strawberry blossoms at Conroy Farms in Camarillo, but that would have little effect on production, said grower Mike Conroy. He said he isn’t taking any extra steps to fend off the cold.

A warming trend is expected to begin today, boosting temperatures back toward their normal seasonal range--with lows in the 40s and highs in the 60s--by Christmas Day.

’ Plants get stressed, and when they get stressed they can’t resist the cold.’

Terry Schaeffer,

meteorologist