Freeze damage in Florida
 

we had temps down to 27 here in tampa Florida USA last week.
I have about 15 pounds of bananas and 50 lbs of papayas(mexican) on some trees. The foliage is pretty much frozen dead, but the trees look like they will survive.
Any suggestions on how to save the fruit? Neither of them are mature enough to ripen after cutting. I'm thinking it might be good to cut off half or so to give the compromised trees a better chance of ripening the fruit.

Re: Freeze damage in Florida
 

As long as the banana stems are firm I'd leave everything alone. Same for the papayas, as long as they seem intact they will push out new leaves.

Re: Freeze damage in Florida
 

Due to the latency of some cold damage it is a good idea to do as both of you have stated. Jeff, I also leave them alone untill the last chance of freeze has past. Sharpstick, I do the same for the frost bitten papaya in late April or early May when latent cold damage has become noticable. Good weather and good growing to both of you!! :2239:

Re: Freeze damage in Florida
 

Don't the Coconut palms die when it get that cold?

Re: Freeze damage in Florida
 

Not necessarily, it depends how high the temps will be after those lows and how long did those lows last.

Re: Freeze damage in Florida
 

We had some patchy frost here in the west palm beach area and all the palm trees are happy as can be. Mature coconuts could survive down to 27 for a few hours. Banana plants will usually get their leaves fried but the stems will survive and push out new leaves as the warm weather returns.

Re: Freeze damage in Florida
 

I experienced lots of noticable freeze damage this year in all of my banana plants. I also may have lost my cacao tree.

I too, hope that my bananas will be fine. I had several bunches that were ripening when the cold kicked in.

Re: Freeze damage in Florida
 

Cacao trees always get kinda ragged in south florida during the winter. I wouldn't give up hope so easily. My suggestion is late February fertilize all of your plants to give them a boost to recover.

Re: Freeze damage in Florida
 

Here in NW FL, the damage was pretty severe. I think the bananas I protected will have the stems survive, but the younger pups will be starting back from at least half of the stem. Some of the protected bananas are already showing some growth.

Inground pineapples were wiped out--even with protection, the ones with pineapples were brought indoors and only had minor damage. My red dragon fruit may have survived, but the white was probably killed. The amazing survival was my avocado--almost no damage except the tips.

Some damage to citrus trees--lemon is really bad--will probably defoliate completely, most have minor limb damage.

Re: Freeze damage in Florida
 

The good thing about the citrus here in florida is that they had been exposed to cool to cold wheather for a while before the severe cold set in. Citrus can go into a sort of dormancy where they can take quite a bit of cold. I remember years ago seeing some 1 or 3 gallon citrus plants in a nursery up in connecticut, the plants didn't sell and the owner left them in an unheated greenhouse all winter long. I remember going in the greenhouse, it was very cold and I picked up one of the citrus plants and the pot was frozen solid. I thought man what a waste just leaving them out in the cold to die frozen solid in their pots. To my surprise I couldn't believe it but in the spring the plants came out of their apparent dormancy and were thriving full of leaves and flowers!

It's amazing to see which plants survive hard freezes like the avocado. The good thing about the freeze is that it killed off alot of the exotic animals such as iguanas, exotic catfish, cyclids, burmese and rock pythons, nile monitor lizards, etc. Hopefully the cold has killed off alot of the asian citrus psylids that spread citrus greening disease.

Re: Freeze damage in Florida
 

I was surprised at how the various varieties have handled the cold. I suspect that most would have been ok with just two nights of cold but there were several days where it didn't get out of the forties at the farm. That lake is a blessing since it didn't actually freeze, but it took a really long time to warm up as well.

Gran Nain was the most unhappy
Misi Luki was damaged badly
Dwarf Namwah came through nicely
Kandrian came through almost unscathed.

If I can farm 20 years without another long spell of cold like that I'll be happy.

Re: Freeze damage in Florida
 

I haven't heard anything about the Piranhas yet, hopefully they died as well

Re: Freeze damage in Florida
 

You have those down there? I thought they were only in the amazon..

It only got down to 40F or did it frost?

Re: Freeze damage in Florida
 

Unfortunately Florida is the home of many invasive species, python, lionfish, Piranhas, and many more.

We had large fish kills (mullet was probably the biggest kill) up here due to the cold and I know the tropical fish industry in So FL had severe damage, but I havent heard much about the invasive exotics.

Re: Freeze damage in Florida
 

Some of the more recent issues we have had down here:

Had to kill all the fish in 2 or 3 ponds because of piranhas

Cable guy got bit by a black mamba

6' iguanas fell out of the trees

As far as cold weather, it actually hit 26 degrees at the kendall airport west of Miami.

Re: Freeze damage in Florida
 

So are people desparate for deadly stuff? then let'em go..? Mamba's are like in Panama.. (Jungle School)
Man that's pretty cold for way down yonder... :^)

Re: Freeze damage in Florida
 

I thought the same.. :lurk:

Re: Freeze damage in Florida
 

Re: Freeze damage in Florida
 

The Fish looks fat, hope they didn't lay eggs (like upsteam). :^)