We knew it was coming and now that it has passed, we are assessing the damage. I’m Larry Marble and we will be discussing the big freeze of 2011 and how it affected South Texas.
Good day to you Texas. Today I’m speaking from my winter garden. We joke about being able to grow vegetables in this part of Texas 13 months out of the year. Well, we can, as long as the month is not like these last four weeks. When we think vegetables and cold 27° seems to be the magic temperature. We fell well below that and languished there for a good while. We saw hefty damage according to Ray Prewitt, Executive Vice President of The Texas Vegetable Association.
Prewitt says Swiss chard and beet crops look to have suffered the most while watermelon, cabbage, onion and broccoli may be less affected by the temperatures. J. Carnes, President of Winter Garden Produce, says it’s a definite issue, not a minor one. Small grains producers are surveying possible damage in their wheat and oat crops. We see widespread leaf tip burn, yellowing and some plants have been turned from white to brown. It got up to 78° yesterday, so we should know soon just how much crown damage we have had. On a side note, I was honored to host the Lets Grow Cotton Conference this week in San Antonio. Bayer Crop Science brought cotton industry professionals from across the Southwest to San Antonio. We discussed recent innovations within our industry and took home lots of good information that will help us all help producers across the Southwest grow more cotton, thanks to Bayer Crop Science.
From the Winter Garden,
Larry Marble