HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. — If the strawberry-hued hat and ornate strawberry-shaped earrings don’t quickly give it away, it’s easy to tell that Kristi Grooms Barnes loves the crop that gives Plant City its identity and pride.
“My family’s been doing this since 1974 — growing strawberries — so it’s in our blood,” she said. “Love it. Wouldn’t trade it for a million years.”
Her relatively-new farm stand near Plant City, Fancy Farms Market, is a celebration of all things strawberry. Customers show up for fresh berries, shortcakes and handspun strawberry milkshakes.
According to Grooms Barnes, the shakes are hard to beat, even on a cold day. But this weekend might be just too cold for one and for the strawberries in the nearby field.
“Cold weather is very detrimental to our crops,” said Grooms Barnes.
On both Dec. 24 and 25, temperatures could dip below freezing in areas across the region, and that’s a forecast her industry takes seriously.
“Oh, it’s a very serious threat,” said Nick Wishnatzki, the public relations manager for Wish Farms, who’s constantly refreshing weather apps for the latest outlook for the weekend temperatures.
According to Wishnatzki, freezing temperatures can burn the berries and especially the more fragile flowers, which produce berries in roughly three-week cycles from around Thanksgiving to Easter in Florida.
“This is essentially what we’re trying to protect right here because that’s the future berry,” he said as he pointed out one of the blossoms in the field at Fancy Farms, an affiliate producer of Wish Farms.
It’s not just strawberries threatened by the cold temperatures. Citrus is also vulnerable.
Florida citrus growers like Kenny Sanders in Hardee County are on high alert.
“Anticipation and anxiety comes into play,” said Sanders. “We’ve had some tough weather, and it’s just been tough this year.”
His grove — which is also his livelihood — was already battered by Hurricane Ian. Like other growers, he’s also battled drought, prior freezes, and a ferociously-damaging citrus disease called greening.
While some growers have given up, Sanders has persisted — but tightened his belt.
“It’s gone from steak to eating hamburgers down to Vienna’s, and I don’t want to get to the bread and water part,” he laughed.
Cold temperatures are the next potential blow.
Temperatures too cold for too long could partially dry out his ripening fruits, which are used to produce orange juice. That could prove a costly problem for both the people who drink Florida orange juice and those who make it possible in the fields and processing plants.
“This doesn’t just affect me and my family,” Sanders said. “This affects the man who’s picking my oranges and the man that’s selling me fertilizer and the processing plant.”
Luckily, there are some steps he can take to protect his crop. To a certain extent, irrigation techniques can insulate citrus fruits from temperatures at or just below freezing. Right now, farmers like Sanders are making sure those tools — pumps, motors, fuel tanks, etc. — are in working order and ready for deployment.
As for strawberries, farmers are also busy preparing tools and techniques that can mitigate some of the harm caused by freezing temperatures.
According to Wishnatzki, as a last resort, growers can use sprinklers to glaze the strawberries in a thin shell of ice.
“And it’ll actually create like an ice igloo around the plant, and it’ll actually capture the heat,” he said.
But it’s not just technology that both citrus and strawberry growers are deploying right now.
For Grooms Barnes, prayer and hope are just as important.
“We’ve been saying many prayers to God and hopefully that this won’t hurt our crops this season,” she said.
