Good news -- despite record low temperatures and devasting freezes, Northern California citrus may not suffer quite as badly as we have been led to believe. In this week's CUESA newsletter (they run the Ferry Plaza farmer's market) there was a whole article on the fate of Northern California citrus. Here are a few key excerpts:
"Fortunately, our citrus growers were not as hard hit, on the whole, as other California orange, lemon, and grapefruit farmers. Many were able to harvest a good portion of their crop before the first deep freeze. While large farms couldn’t find enough laborers to pick their fruit, most of our farmers have fewer acres and were able to salvage more of their crop because of it. Though some fruits were harvested before reaching their peak ripeness and may not be quite as sweet as usual, they are preferable to no crop at all.
The jury is still out on the fruit that remains on trees. Tory Farms, Hamada Farms, Bernard Ranches, Olsen Organics and Everything Under the Sun Farm all reported that they felt optimistic about the unpicked fruit, but it will be a week before they can determine how much damage was done. Citrus fruits with lower sugar content like lemon, grapefruit, and pomelo are at higher risk than fruit with more sugar, since sugar lowers the freezing point. Yuk Hamada guesses that most of his unharvested lemons will be lost to the freeze."
Sounds like there will still be less citrus than if the freeze hadn't been quite so bad, but there is every reason to expect that the citrus offerings, at least at Ferry Plaza, won't go totally belly up this winter.
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