UMATILLA, Fla. — Growers in Lake County are taking steps to protect their crops ahead of three nights of expected below-freezing temperatures and wind gusts up to 35 mph this weekend.
Michael Graham, the owner of Graham’s U-Pick Farm in Umatilla, said he’s particularly concerned about the impact on about 1100 peach trees grown on his property.
The forecast predicts temperatures will drop below freezing over the weekend, with at least one night in the low 20s in Lake County, prompting Graham to prepare his micro irrigation system to protect his crops.
Graham told Channel 9 he already ran the system overnight Tuesday into Wednesday, and anticipates running water overnight on Saturday and Sunday.
“That’s 72-degree water in a 24-degree night. You get the thermal energy right into the trees, which will help protect it,” explained Graham.
He explained the running water sprayed onto the trees does turn into ice, but because that water is consistently flowing the Ice’ temperature stays at about 32 degrees, protecting blooms and the fruit itself from frostier temperatures outside.
Graham has been nurturing peach trees on his farm for more than 13 years, though his farm has been in the family since 1918.
He says for generations citrus was grown on the farm, but the strategic shift to growing peaches came after challenges during particularly bad freezes in the 1980s, and amid the spread of Greening disease, which severely impacted Florida’s citrus industry, causing a 94 percent drop in production in Florida between 2003 and 2023.
Graham noted the high stakes of a possible freeze, telling Channel 9 he was “very concerned” ahead of this weekend.
“If we lose everything, it would be next year before we could be back in the business,” said Graham, “I mean this is it. This is what we have. This is what we do. If we lost everything out here, we just have to get geared up, tighten the belt a little bit… That’s part of farming. I mean that’s a risk you take.”below-freezing
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