VIDEO: Cold Temperatures Affecting Crops In North Mississippi
PONTOTOC, Miss. (WCBI)-The temperature is continuing to drop, temps are expected to dip into the twenties by early Tuesday morning.
With this cold weather setting in, it could potentially have a dangerous impact on crops, just ask workers at Cherry Creek Orchards in Pontotoc. Their orchards don’t respond well to this type of weather.
“Right now they’re in early bloom stage which means they’ve just come out of budding,” said Amanda Stark, co-owner of Cherry Creek Orchards. “When they’re in that stage they can’t handle too much low temperature. It can get to probably about 27 degrees then it starts to get scary. After that, we’re starting to look at a lot of loss.”
Stark said some of the orchards ended up blooming-out earlier than she expected them too.
“Right now the peaches and the plums are what’s in danger,” she said.
If temperatures continue to remain low like they are now and her orchards die out, Stark said it’ll be a huge blow to her business.
“It’ll have a huge impact on what has already bloomed,” she explained. “A lot of the earlier varieties, it would set us back going to the farmer’s market, and we would not have as near as much produce.”
However, she’s determined not to let her orchards die out. Stark along with other workers reached out to community members, asking them to donate metal barrels to they can light them on fire to help provide the orchards with some type of heat during these cold and frigid temperatures.
“We’re going to set a bunch of fires around the orchards and see what happens,” said Stark. “We’re hoping to raise the temps throughout the orchard a little bit to keep the blooms from freezing off and the little baby peaches that have already started peaking through.”
Stark tells WCBI they’re planning to starting lighting the fires early Tuesday morning at midnight.
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