US: Growers focus on battered greenhouses in wake of blizzard
The farm lost five of 20 greenhouses to heavy, southerly winds that whipped through the farm during the recent blizzard. Some of the destroyed greenhouses still had plants in them and workers spent Monday moving plants from the broken greenhouses into others that were still intact.
“We’ve been running the furnaces on high (in the destroyed greenhouses), since the snow,” Ostuno said, adding that the cost of doing that was really adding up.
Greenhouse owners said it was fortunate the season was not in full swing and that some of the greenhouses were empty or only partially filled with the tiny plants that feed the state’s agricultural industry. Most greenhouses are growing annuals, geraniums, fuchsia, pansies and the like.
“We have only a couple of houses with stuff in them,” said Steve Manke, manager of Tower Farms, who added that although a couple of greenhouses were lost to the snow, it could have been worse if it had been a little further along in the growing season.
“Hopefully we won’t get any more storms,” he said while looking at the snow stuck in the plastic crevices of one of his ruined greenhouses. “We turned up the heat (in the ones with plants), so as the snow fell, it melted off the top.”
Manke, and other farmers said they’d have to take down the damaged or destroyed greenhouses, put up new ones and have all the bent and twisted pipes rebuilt inside.
Round-framed greenhouses seemed to take the biggest hits. The more triangular ones, those with pitched roofs, fared better under the weight of 30-plus inches of snow that fell in town during the blizzard. Most of the greenhouses are situated in rows over many acres, with narrow walkways between them.
Some farmers saw the potential for damage and prevented it by uncovering growing areas not being used.
“I had gone out and cut all the poly covering and just let the snow in,” said Alex Arisco, owner of Arisco Farms, which has 70 acres in Cheshire. “But we didn’t have any damage on structures.”
He said he cut the coverings over a 3-acre growing area to prevent the snow from caving in the plastic.
“It was my idea because I saw the bolts breaking, and if I hadn’t cut it and left the weight on it, I would have lost them,” he said.
It is too early, farmers said, to tell how much the damage will cost. Since it isn’t the busy growing season, farmers said they were going to look at fixing or replacing the greenhouses that were lost in the next month or so.
Source: myrecordjournal.com