INDEPENDENCE -- Strawberry lovers will have to wait a couple more weeks until they see the locally-grown version piling up at the supermarket, but the cold snap and freezing rain that hit south Louisiana last week isn't expected to badly affect the region's production of berries.
"There should be a minor setback, but barring no more colder weather coming through, in three weeks we’re going to start seeing the berries roll in," said Whitney Wallace, a county agent with the LSU AgCenter in Tangipahoa Parish.
Two farmers in the Independence area said they had just a small fraction of blooms — 20 percent for one man — get burned by the 14 degree temperatures. A strawberry bloom is the flower that will produce a strawberry.
Overall, their strawberry fields made it through the cold OK. "I was expecting worse damage than we had," said Dale Carona, who farms 12 acres of strawberry fields.
In a race to save their crops, many of Louisiana's strawberry farmers rushed to drape cloths over their fields, hoping the fabric will work wi…
The farmers said the early season has been slow in terms of the number of ripe berries. But this is more as a result of the continued cold temperatures than the short-lived blast.
"Cold temperatures have kept us about three weeks behind where we were last year," Carona said.
The farmers said they expect the berries to start coming out quickly once it warms up.
"I think it's gonna be a good season. We've just got to get over this hump with the cold weather," said farmer Anthony Baglio, who said he has picked 92 flats of strawberries on Tuesday.
What got the farmers through the bitter cold is a double layer of insulating cloth called Agribon. The farmers set up a system of wire hoops over their crops and string cord between them. The cloths are laid on top and held down with sand bags, creating a mini greenhouse.
The white textured covers have been in use for more than a dozen years in Tangipahoa Parish. Before the cloths came into wide use, the farmers said they would spray their plants with water throughout cold nights. But that put the plants at risk of more disease and could be ineffective when temperatures plummeted, Baglio said.
"It's always a gamble, but it's a lot safer bet now than it used to be, because of the things we're using," Carona said.