It’s the time of year most Florida Farmers fear: cold weather season.
Well now there may be a new product being tested that could help farmers protect their crops and reduce the amount of work it takes to do it.
With just a few pumps of this product, farmers at Shady Oak Farm are hoping it will save their signature blueberries from the wrath of tonight’s frigid cold temperatures.
“It puts like a plastic coating, a protective coating over the plants so they don’t freeze,” said Shady Oak farm manager, Retta Baucom. She says the protective coating is a chemical, a part of an experiment with the University of Florida. And last night she gave it a test run.
“Last night it did vey well and we’re continuing that spraying today because tonight’s weather is going to be a lot worse,” said Baucom.
With temperatures expected to take a dip into the 30’s tonight, Baucom says she’s willing to test out this experimental chemical at the Upick farm. She’s hoping it will help save her bottom line.
“It has the potential of closing the farm because if you don’t have the freeze protection, we could loose our crop,” she said.
Baucom says the chemical coating is safe and washes right off, but even with that safety guarantee, she still didn’t use it on all of her plants, just the small test area.
For the rest of the crops, well she used good old-fashioned water.
If all goes well with this experiment, Baucom says it will change farming in the bitter cold for good.
Baucom says her farm has been working closely with the University of Florida to improve their farming techniques. She says this experiment is just one of their projects and if all goes well, more farmers will be able to take advantage of it in the future.