This weekend's low temperatures, which lasted more than ten hours and reached 10 degrees below zero in some areas of the Rio Negro valley, affected plum, peach, nectarine, and cherry crops.
"There were people turning on the heating equipment to fight frost from 8:30 p.m," stated producer Hugo Galeano.
The percentages of loss in blooms was estimated at between 70 and 100 percent in farms located throughout the Rio Negro valley, including the ones on the Colorado River, where the frost lasted more than 10 hours. "These are nights in which producers spend nearly five thousand pesos in fuel to fight the frost," said Galeano.
The farmers had to defend their plantations for four consecutive nights. The percentage data collected by the chamber producers indicate that 10 percent of the surface is protected with sprinklers and that up to 80 percent of the farmers defended their crops from the frost with fires or by flooding them with water - the rest either had specialist equipment or just trusted to fate.
According to the civil defence of the province, "the weather conditions are expected to be good across the provincial territory and a front from the southwest will be arriving towards the weekend. Thus, there will be rainfall in the mountains for the first days and weather conditions should improve during the week." Night temperatures will be below zero in the southern region.
In turn, the National Roads Department asked drivers to take extra precautions when driving through the highlands, on route 40 between El Bolson and Villa Mascardi, because of the presence of ice on certain sector - the effect of the heavy frosts - as well as on the rest of the roads.
Source - http://www.freshplaza.com/
