OVIEDO, Fla. – Just a few weeks ago, Spectrum News 13 weather experts warned Central Florida to bundle up, as some of the coldest air in four years plunged well past Central Florida even hitting Miami and points south.

What You Need To Know

  • Big Daddy’s Farm produced nearly 1,300 pounds of zucchini and squash in 2021

  • In 2022, they will be down about 500 pounds

  • Agriculture is the second largest economic driver and supports 2 million jobs in Florida

While that cold blast didn’t last long, it was enough to do some serious damage to crops, and farmers are still reeling from the effects.

Florida produces over 300 commodities and a big reason for that is the subtropical climate. However, even making all the right preparations for the cold, farmers can’t control Mother Nature and our now seeing the impact some freezing temps had on their crops.

For seven months of the year, the Big Daddy’s Farm in Oviedo is growing. This year, their production of zucchini, squash, and tomatoes will be down.

 

“The freeze two weeks ago killed a lot of those plants," farmer Rex Clonts says, standing in front of his Big Daddy’s USDA Certified Organic farm. "Ones that didn’t die got stunted, so they are very hard to produce.”

Clonts monitors his 12 acre farm regularly, checking his crops daily and each part of his farm multiple times a day.

In 2021, Big Daddy’s Farm produced nearly 1,300 pounds of zucchini and squash. This year they will be down about 500 pounds. Some plants on the farm, the naked eye can see have been frost damaged. Plants have dead leaves and others are just in really bad shape. These factors are now impacting Big Daddy's bottom line.

“We lost thousands of dollars a day in sales," Clonts begin to explain. "We will have customers come in and would normally spend $40, and we don’t have two to three items they want.

With nearly 50 different types of fruits and vegetables being grown on the farm, Clonts says the frost reacts to each one differently. For instance, the cherry red tomatoes have several dead frost, burned leaves. The Italian eggplant had some frost burn, but is also getting limited new growth. Other plants like the collard greens don’t mind the cold weather at all.

“You never like to have a freeze and lose crops, but it is part of the business,” Clonts says.

The Department of Agriculture is now trying to help farmers like Rex by sending out surveys to farmers across the state to determine how much help will be needed to our state’s producers.​

 

To give you an idea how important farms are to the state of Florida, agriculture is the second largest economic driver with an economic impact of $149.5 billion and supporting 2 million jobs.