Though there was widespread flooding in Texas as a result of several weather fronts converging over a several-day period surrounding the Oct. 24 weekend, the fresh produce production appears to have survived with minimal damage.

“We dodged a bullet,” Brett Erickson, president of the Texas International Produce Association, said Oct. 27. “We had a confluence of three weather situations that could have created the ‘perfect storm.’   We had Hurricane Patricia, which was the strongest storm on record. We had a low pressure coming off the Gulf and a cool front coming down from the north. They all met over Texas.”

He said abundant rain fell in many areas and there was a great deal of flooding, but the state’s fresh produce-growing areas were spared disastrous results.

Echoing those sentiments the following day was Don Ed Holmes, president of The Onion House in Weslaco, TX.

“We feel quite fortunate that we didn’t lose more fields,” he said of the spring onion crop that is in the midst of its six-week planting period.

However, Holmes said Texas growers are not quite out of the woods yet. “When the storm hit we were about halfway done with our plantings, and on schedule.”

The longtime Rio Grande Valley onion veteran said the window for planting the famed Texas short-day onion for spring production is Oct. 1 to Nov. 15. Consequently, growers do have time to continue their planting and replant washed out fields, as long as the weather cooperates. “We need some dry weather over the next three weeks,” he said Oct. 28.

Holmes noted that as much as 10 inches fell overnight in downtown Weslaco but in fields just six miles away, only three inches of rain fell. The sandy soil fields had the biggest problem as some bedding was wiped out.  

Following last year’s disastrous season, which saw 80 percent of the onion crop wiped out because of winter and spring rains, Holmes said growers were cautiously optimistic this year. Most seemed to be planting a normal crop and, before this storm, he expected planted acreage to be about the same as last year, which is typically around 7,500 acres. Now how much acreage is planted is dependent upon the weather.

He did say, however, that it was an El Niño condition that doomed the deal last year, and growers will be watching anxiously to see how this year’s El Niño prediction manifests itself in South Texas. It’s all a timing issue, as onions can withstand some rain, it just depends when it hits and how intense it is.

The other big fresh crop in Texas this time of year is citrus. Erickson said the late-October storms and flooding did curtail harvesting for about three days, but growers reported no long-term damage.

“Sales volume was reduced for a few days but the growers are just letting their groves dry out and will get right back in,” he said.

Erickson said the same was true with some winter vegetable production. He said there might have been some small losses but no reports of wholesale damage to any large blocks of land. He cited the variable weather patterns as an explanation for the limited damage. While some cities in central Texas reported up to 18 inches of rain overnight during the brunt of the storm, for most of the valley, Erickson said three to four inches was the common reading.