(WSVN) – After several days of brutal cold, farmers across South Florida checked their crops to see if they had sustained any damage while watering and covering their plants to help them recover from the frigid temperatures.
Many of these farmers say the whole picture won’t be clear for a few days.
“Gonna be a few days before we see the full extent of the damage,” said David Torbert, owner of Torbert Farms.
While some damage is already visible, Torbert says other problems could still show up in the coming days.
“Some of the stuff you can see right away, some things that seem minor now might become a little worse,” said Torbert.
As temperatures continue to change, farmers said that it becomes a waiting game. As they wait, they plan to take action by watering crops, which they say is a key step to protect plants from shock.
“We’re just gonna start watering everything, trying to help that plant come out of shock and just try to give it what it needs,” said Tobert.
At local nurseries across the area, workers are also watering the plants to keep them from shock from the cold.
“For the most part, the plants are OK. We did lose a couple here and there, but those are just casualties,” said Grace Gonzalez from Galloway Farm Nursery.
Workers said that watering helps protect root systems and can hold in heat.
“We would do a lot of watering to keep the root systems nice and moist, and supposedly it holds in a lot of heat when they’re nice and wet,” said Gonzalez.
Before the extreme cold set in, Gonzalez said her team covered plants with blankets to trap warmth.
“When we put some blankets on, you could see, here we have some, like cloths and stuff, that kinda hold the heat in a little bit,” she said.
Farmers said that it’s too early to know how much was lost and that the next few days will tell the story.
“I mean, we definitely had some loss, we just really have to see how bad some fields are, and some of the ones that we think are better, if they’re really as good as we think they are,” said Torbert.
As the farmers remain in a wait-and-see mode, they tell 7News it’s part of the job, and that one thing they cannot control is Mother Nature.
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