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Wild Weather Causes Trouble for Florida Farmers


Florida has the distinction of being the only state in the union that had no snow on the ground last week. Our weather is mild compared to other states right now, but things here have been turbulent enough to create problems for farmers.

[Samsula farmer Paul Tomazin checks some baby lettuce]

Paul Tomazin says it’s been a rough winter for farming.  The season started out much too warm for lettuce and the other cool season crops on his Samsula farm- he says they just weren’t filling out the way they were supposed to.

“And so that hurt us initially, then we had a couple of freezes, we had about 3 days of frost, and after all those, which slowed down, which burned some of the vegetables and slowed some of the growth, then we had the rains,” he says.

Rain is a problem because this is supposed to be the dry season in Florida and farmers plant accordingly. He says he and his father have discing or tilling the fields heavily in attempt to dry them out and things are looking ok right now- but he says his crops won’t easily tolerate another dose of heavy rains. 

 

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