Old Man Winter puts squeeze on Florida orange growers

Jeff Casale

MIAMI—Florida growers have yet to determine how much damage their crops suffered from the cold snap that gripped most of the country the first week of January, but insurance experts say much of the expected losses will be covered.

 

Pythons and citrus and iguanas, oh my! Frigid Florida copes

Ordinarily a sunny playground that mocks the rest of winter-suffering America, Miami, Florida, was in sore need of a giant Snuggie on Sunday.There wasn’t a scantily clad beautiful person at any of the outside tables at South Beach’s tony Balans restaurant. Everyone was crammed inside to assuage their Saturday nights with pancakes and Cuban coffee, chuckling at the heat lamps that waiters had scrambled to put up outdoors.


 

Fern growers fear worst from frost

By Eloísa Ruano González and Martin E. Comas, Orlando Sentinel


Volusia County fern growers have watered their plants relentlessly the past several nights hoping to prevent frost. Despite their efforts, the damage looks chilling. 

Central Florida’s fern industry – which raked in $70 million last year – will lose an estimated 40 to 60 percent of its foilage, commercial horiculturist Dana Venrick said Wednesday after visiting several Volusia ferneries this week. Small ferneries already reported losing at least four to five acres of foliage.

“I’ve observed a lot of ice and a lot of damage,” Venrick said “This is the longest, continuous freeze I can remember in my lifetime.”