Video: The Impacts Of Unseasonably Warm Weather

MAYHEW, Miss.(WCBI)—The hats, jackets, and scarves aren’t getting a much use as they should this time of year and with warm temperatures come blooming and budding flowers and fruit.

” My strawberries are about 3 weeks ahead of where they were last year,”said co-owner of Mayhew Tomato Farm Melvin Ellis.

Melvin Ellis is co-owner of Mayhew Tomato Farm and he says it’s not time to plant tomatoes yet but his strawberries are already beginning to arrive.

“I expect to be picking strawberries in really late march unless something dramatic changes in the weather,”said Ellis.

It’s those dramatic changes that could cause some problems over the next few weeks.

MSU Professor of Horticulture Dr. Richard Harkess says the higher the mercury gets in February the more confused the plants become.

” When the weather fluctuates wildly with cool temperatures warm temperatures cool temperatures warm temperatures it really throws the plants out of balance because when it gets cool the plants need a certain amount of cool to get through the winter to stay dormant when it gets warm they start coming out of dormancy when it gets cool again especially if it gets cold and it gets down to freezing then the plants become damaged,”said Harkess.

Harkess says the warm temperatures could also extend an invitation for unwanted pests to stick around.

“It’s possibly a problem in that with cold winter temperatures especially some of the pests that over winter in the soil if their in the upper levels of soil they may freeze and it will diminish the population and so with a real warm winter we might see higher levels of insects overwintering and so it could result in higher pesticide application rates to control those pests this coming year,” said Harkess.

Ellis says the same way people wear jackets when it’s cold, the plants need protection from mother nature as well.

“We have to protect the flowers from the cold weather and so we use if you’ll think of it’s a linen material it’s almost like the cloth material that goes under your box spring except the sheets we put out are 30 feet wide by by 200 feet long and we’ll cover almost 200 acres when we are looking at a hard freeze in the spring,”said Ellis.

Harkess says the most significant effect to the plants is still to be determined.

“The biggest impact will be what happens with the weather from here out. Because right now if it stays warm it can have very little impact you will notice in some plants… I have some tulips in my front yard that are barely coming out of the ground then flowering and part of that is because they didn’t get enough chilling they need enough cold temperatures to give proper stem elongation,”said  Harkess.

The cold snap happened 25 days early this year. Harvest season from the strawberries is the beginning of April.