4-DAY COLD SPELL SLAMS CALIFORNIA; CROPS DEVASTATED

DEC. 25, 1998

4-DAY COLD SPELL SLAMS CALIFORNIA; CROPS DEVASTATED

A brutal four-day freeze has destroyed more than a third of California's annual citrus crop, inflicting upwards of a half-billion dollars in damage and raising the prospect of tripled orange prices in supermarkets by next week.

''In a nutshell, it was way too cold for way too long,'' said Gary Kunkel, assistant agriculture commissioner in Tulare County, which has 100,000 acres of orange groves -- about half the state's production -- and estimated today that 85 percent of the citrus crop remaining on trees was already lost, about $370 million of its $500 million annual total.

''We've had some places below 25 degrees for 13 or 14 hours at a time,'' Mr. Kunkel added. ''Imagine watching somebody just tear up your annual paycheck right in front of your eyes.''

Because of El Nino-related planting delays and poor pollination caused by excess moisture, the California citrus crop was already expected to be about 20 percent below last year's, said Keith Collins, chief economist for the United States Department of Agriculture. ''We were already on track to have a much reduced crop,'' Mr. Collins said.

In Lindsay, the LoBue Bros. packing plant, Tulare County's largest employer, laid off 450 of its 500 employees on Wednesday, and company officials said it could be two weeks before they know whether they would need their usual crew of pickers and packers for oranges.

http://www.nytimes.com/1998/12/25/us/4-day-cold-spell-slams-california-crops-devastated.html