Cold Weather Helping Rio Grande Producers

From a Texas A&M press release:

The recent cold blast responsible for so much chaos throughout the state may have helped agricultural producers in the Lower Rio Grande Valley. Temperatures that failed to drop below freezing likely improved the quality of citrus, made sugarcane easier to harvest and knocked back populations of insect pests in onions, experts say.

"Temperatures here didn't manage to drop below 34 degrees; so as long as it doesn't freeze, it's mostly good for agriculture in deep South Texas," said Dr. Bob Wiedenfeld, a Texas Agricultural Experiment Station soils scientist at the Texas A&M University System Agricultural Research and Extension Center at Weslaco.

Here's the situation as of late this week:

Citrus: "January is when our citrus tastes the best," he said. "Sugars accumulate in cold weather, so our citrus is very sweet right now. The leaves of sugarcane tend to dry up with this cold weather, which makes mechanical harvesting easier, and it helps knock back populations of insect pests."

Dr. Luis Ribera, a Texas Cooperative Extension agricultural economist, said the estimated $2 billion dollar loss to California's citrus, strawberry and avocado crops due to sub-freezing temperatures would boost citrus prices and increase imports of those products. "What's bad for Florida or California citrus crops is usually good for us in that citrus prices will go up for our growers," he said.

Onions: Dr. T-X Liu, an Experiment Station entomologist, said the cold snap slowed the buildup of insect pests in onions at a very critical time. Rio Grande Valley onions are planted in October and harvested in April.

"This is the time of year that onion growers watch for populations of onion thrips very closely," he said. "Before this cold snap, thrips populations were increasing rapidly, meaning growers were preparing to treat those populations with insecticides. But now, their populations have dropped, or at least slowed down their rapid increase for a couple of weeks, which is very good news for growers."

Sugarcane: Humberto Vela, manager of public relations and safety at the state's only sugar mill in Santa Rosa, said 60% of the area's sugarcane crop was still in the field, but doing well.

"Cool weather helps the sugars accumulate so we've been having good sugar yields in our harvest to date," he said. "In order to start seeing damage to the crop, temperatures have to drop to 26 degrees for at least four hours, and we got nowhere near that. Barring any delays, we should finish harvesting the crop by mid-May."

Cotton, grain sorghum: Short soil moisture in some areas of the Valley may be a problem as growers gear up to plant cotton and sorghum in mid-February, necessitating pre-plant irrigation, Wiedendfeld said.