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ARCHIVED - Cold snap wreaks havoc on key Murcia artichoke and lettuce crops
Freezing temperatures in the Murcia Region this week will have a knock-on effect on workers and produce prices
The recent frosts have caused damage to artichoke and lettuce crops in the area around the Guadalentín river near Lorca. During the early hours of last night, thermometers in the area showed minimum temperatures of -2ºC in districts like Lorca and Puerto Lumbreras. Local farmers will have to wait a few days to see the real extent of the damage, as they say it is still too early to see the repercussions the cold has had on other crops.
It was the early hours of Monday morning when the low temperatures began throughout the Region of Murcia, and they have continued for two days straight. Some farmers, to reduce the effect of the intense cold on their veggies, are placing thermal blankets on the lettuce crops in the Guadalentín and watering the plants at the coldest times of day to stop them from freezing.
The intense cold is also causing fruit and vegetable pickers to delay their arrival on the farms as the produce cannot be harvested until it has thawed. They have to wait for the first rays of sunshine to warm the plants, and only then can they begin harvesting.
The cold has mainly affected the most sensitive crops such as artichoke and lettuce, while the hardier broccoli has emerged unscathed. Iceberg lettuce “will have to have a couple of leaves removed” according to Francisco Martínez Mínguez, technical coordinator of the Cooperativa Alimentos del Mediterráneo (Alimer) in Lorca, while the artichoke “cannot be sold for fresh produce because it is ‘tainted’ by the cold and several of its leaves turn black. We will have to leave it for canning, although it is still too early to know the damage caused by the frosts”.Elsewhere in the Murcia Region, citrus fruits such as lemons have also been affected in some plantations located in Las Torres de Cotillas, for example, where the fruit has frozen, while in the northwest the frosts may make almond trees start flowering later. The unseasonably warm weather over the New Year actually forced the almond trees to begin flowering earlier than usual, a state of affairs that confuses the flora and has knock-on effects on the ecosystem.
In several areas of Cieza, Abarán and Jumilla, peach and nectarine orchards have weathered nights as cold as -8ºC, meaning that “between 50% and 60% of the extra-early production, some of whose peach blossoms opened due to the high temperatures recorded at the beginning of January, has been eliminated”, commented Miguel Ángel Piñera, President of COAG Cieza.
These extra-early varieties represent 5% of the total stone fruit production in the locality, so the amount that has been lost would be 2% or 3% of all the fruit from Cieza. However, temperatures are expected to continue to fall until Friday.
Other farmers are spending their nights trying to prevent the blossoms of their trees from freezing by lighting fires and using anti-freeze irrigation systems. Over the last few months, growers have been stockpiling paraffin due to the shortage of this product on the market because of the supply chain crisis.
Images: Archive
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