The Texas citrus industry is working to recover from a major freeze. It is unlike anything the southern tip of the state has seen since 1983 and 1989.
In the Rio Grande Valley, Texas, it is not common to see frost on citrus orchards or ice on a nearby canal. The unusually cold weather has devastated the citrus crop. Some of it is frozen on the inside and likely destroyed.
“We got down to 21 degrees and so they’ll definitely be ice in a lot of the fruit, whether it’s all of it or not remains to be seen,” Dale Murden, the President of Texas Citrus Mutual, states.
A complete summary of the damage done to these trees will not be completed right away: “It just really takes a few weeks to properly evaluate what actually happened.”
He says that the bloom of the tree is harmed and they could be hurting next year’s crop, and these fruits have had to endure low temperatures for a long, long time.
According to Murden, “Typically our old rule of thumb is that if a citrus fruit had five hours under 28 degrees, we were going to have an issue with ice inside, not necessarily tree damage, but again, we got down to 21 degrees. So, we’re going to have to take a long hard look and see what, if anything we can salvage.”
He believes much of the fruit will have to be sent for juice. It has some similarities to the devastation brought about by freezes the Rio Grande had in the 1980s.
“Well it does in the temperature, except that I think we actually go down into the teens. Well I know we got down into the teens in ’83 and ’89, but the biggest difference... is the length,” he adds. “Those two freezes were longer events. This, for what it’s worth, is short lived.”
Now, the citrus producers of the Rio Grande Valley work to recover
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Related:
Texas citrus producers prepare for a potentially devastating freeze
Citrus harvest is not looking sour in south Texas
Texas Farm Bureau on current conditions in the state and the weather’s impact on ag