Business owners of ferneries in Volusia County are facing challenges after they were impacted by a severe hailstorm in early February.

They say it is affecting them at a critical time with holidays like Valentine's Day and Mother's Day just around the corner, which are among the most significant sources of revenues for the ferneries.

The hailstorm dumped nearly three inches of ice on acres of fern, ready to be harvested.

“To be honest with you. I was in complete awe,” said Erik Hagstrom, manager of Albin Hagstrom and Son, Inc. His family business is one of the nation’s top producers of fern.

But in the almost 100 years in business Hagstrom says this is a first.

“My father is 88 years old. He’s ran the company his whole life. Just about. And he’s never seen anything like this,” he said. “I don’t know if we’ll ever see it again. Hopefully not.”

The weight from the hail was so much that it bent down the rebars holding up the saran covers in the ferneries.

In terms of overall production, Hagstrom says they lost a total of 20 acres out of 500 they own. Additionally, Hagstrom said the hailstorm is also having a big economic impact on their business.

“Hate to lose any crops,” he said. “In the neighborhood of $150,000 worth of product that was here. We certainly hate to lose that. And, you know, it’s time and effort and money and sweat, you know, was put in to grow that crop. And now we won’t get to harvest it.”

Hagstrom is not the only one impacted. Stacy Jones with Ronald Jones ferneries says they lost nearly 50 acres.

And there’s another challenge that comes with the repairs. Hagstrom says their farm insurance company recently stopped offering coverage.

“In May of this year, the Farm Bureau quit insuring all agricultural fern properties like this,” he said. “So, we lost all our coverage. So, all this damage will have to be repaired with cash money.”

They estimate the cost of the repairs will be close to a million dollars.

“These furnaces are very expensive. This saran is super expensive. We use nails to hold the saran together, which is a very tried-and-true method (…) definitely is a very expensive repair,” Hagstrom said. Which means it will be a long time until crops can grow back again.

Source - https://mynews13.com