County’s vegetable crops wiped out by huge rains
Tropical systems kill corn, beans, lettuce; sugar harvest delayed.
Fresh green beans, a popular dish on the Thanksgiving table, are expected to be in short supply this Thanksgiving after vegetable and sugar cane crops in western Palm Beach County were wiped out by flooding.
Hurricane Irma, which made landfall in Florida on Sept. 10, drenched and flooded fields south of Lake Okeechobee in the Belle Glade and Pahokee area, damaging the cane and delaying its harvest. Then this past week’s tropical system dumped more rain on the area, destroying such tender vegetables as green beans, sweet corn and lettuces that were planted after Irma.
This past week, Florida Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam said Irma inflicted an estimated $2.5 billion in damage on the state’s agriculture industry.
“The only thing that can be planted now and have anything for Thanksgiving is the radish crop,” said John S. Hundley, vice
presidentwhich vegetables growsof Hundleyin sugar the cane Glades. Farms,and “Lettuces,beans and sweet cabbage corn, will green all be well after Thanksgiving. Green beans are always a big seller for Thanksgiving.
There will be very tight supplies this year.”
On average, fields in the Everglades Agricultural Area’s muck soils and adjacent sandlands have received 30 month. inches of rain in the past
“The ra i ns have been worse than they were two years ago, when we had the most rain since 1932,” Hundley said Monday.
“Our employees don’t like it. There is nothing for us to do. They go home early or don’t come out at all,” Hundley said. “We are hoping we can have some good weatherthe startsdays Christmasahead seven, and of eight hopefullymarket Christmas.”or which ninehit Much of the area’s biggest crop, sugar cane, was flattened by Irma, and just when farms had dried out enough for heavy equip- ment to enter the fields, this past week’s tropical system dumped more rain. Runoff from Hurricane Irma is still rushing into Lake Okeechobee from the north. Since June, the area has been inundated with record-breaking rainfall. The lake has reached 17.16 feet above sea level, the high- est level since after Hurricane Wilma in November 2005, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said Monday. U.S. Sugar spokeswoman Judy Sanchez said the company began harvesting Oct. 1, but Wednesday, had to shut down both field and raw milling operations because of new flooding. The com- pany harvests about 200,000 acres of cane in Palm Beach, Hendry and Glades coun- ties. Some of that is grown by U.S. Sugar and some by independent farmers.
“While we are having to start back slowly due to addi- tional rain this weekend, we have been able to begin harvesting on some of our drier, more sandy soils,” Sanchez said Monday. “The sand drains more rapidly than our muck soils that are located closer to Lake Okeechobee.”
Florida Crystals’ spokesman Marianne Martinez said Monday the company had hoped to start harvesting Wednesday. “But the fields are extremely wet, so we have delayed until Thursday. That could still be postponed again, because of the wet conditions. There’s also more rain on the radar for the weekend. We have 140,000 acres of sugar cane to harvest.”
The Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative of Florida in Belle Glade expects to start harvesting 72,500 acres Oct. 24. It typically starts its harvest later than the other two companies.