For South Florida, the aftermath of Hurricane Irma in the summer of 2017 had many breathing a sigh of relief since the Category 5 storm lost much of its power before making landfall.
Unfortunately, this was only a temporary reprieve for some in the state, as Hurricane Michael arrived in October, causing significant damage in northern Florida’s Panhandle region.
Irma’s winds and downpours affected predominantly fruit crops, since most vegetables weren’t in the ground at the time the storm hit, said Jeff Wasielewski, commercial tropical fruit extension agent for the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences Extension in Miami-Dade County.
“Avocado growers took a particularly bad hit from Irma and lost nearly 50 percent of their production for the year,” he said
Mary Ostlund, director of marketing for Brooks Tropicals LLC, Homestead, FL, seconds the assessment: “After the hurricane, we had lower expectations for our avocado crop, but we have since increased our projections.”
Other crops sustained minimal damage, and most are expected to be back to normal harvests for the next season.
Doug Tannehill, president of exporter Global Perishable Services LLP, Miami, says planting delays had the most impact, since vegetable growers had to wait for fields to dry before getting crops in the ground.
“There was a gap in zucchini, yellow squash, and tomatoes,” he says.
Rather than harvesting in early December, “the water pushed it back to mid to late December, delaying the growing season.”
Jalaram Produce Inc., Homestead, FL, experienced this firsthand. With Irma hitting so close to harvest season, the grower-importer’s local farmland was hit hard. “It damaged a lot of crops,” says salesman Cruz Castillo, citing 95 percent of in-ground crops did not make it.
He is grateful the company was able to bounce back by replanting, “but we lost a month and a half of the season.”
This is an excerpt from the most recent Produce Blueprints quarterly journal. Click here to read the full article.
