THONOTOSASSA – Jerry Wright lost half of his crop on his 40-acre strawberry farm, Passion Organics, when the temperatures dipped below freezing several nights in a row at the end of January and into the first week of February.
He estimated his financial loss is in excess of $700,000.
It’s one of the most catastrophic losses he’s seen in 40 years of strawberry farming in and around Plant City. It’s rivaled only by the winter of 1988-1989 when it was so cold over Christmas the electric grid became overwhelmed and many thousands of Tampa Electric and Florida Power customers lost power…