South Florida growers welcome wet weather

BELLE GLADE, Fla. - January is typically a dry month, but according to the National Weather Service it's rarely as dry as January was in 2012.
 
The month was problematic for different vegetable farmers in Palm Beach County.
 
Rick Roth of Roth Farms said that there was good and bad news in January when it came to the weather.
 
"Good news is we haven't had the cold winter we had the last three or four years," Roth said.
 
The bad news is after there were freezing temperatures, Roth said the crops didn't get enough rain. "If that doesn't happen and then the cold north wind comes through, it just dries the crops out," he said.
 
This creates inconsistencies in the growth of his vegetables and in some cases kills the crop. "We did lose some crops because the wind and frost just beat it up," Roth said.
 
In West Palm Beach, .38 of an inch of rain fell and in Canal Point, which is in the Glades area .37 of an inch of rain fell.
 
For West Palm Beach it is the tenth driest January on record and for Canal Point it's the ninth driest.
 
University of Florida Palm Beach County Extension agent David Sui said the dry conditions mixed with frost and wind wasn't good for the fruit crops either.
 
"The wind lashes vegetable leaves and even fruit tree leaves onto the ground," Sui said. "That slows down plant development."
 
That means less production and less money for growers like Roth Farms.
 
"To lose one or two weeks of lower production is not the end of the world," Roth said. "The bottom line is this is supposed to be a very dry spring so we feel like we're going to get more of that."
 
In an ideal world both Sui and Roth said they'd like to see about a half inch to an inch of rain each week in February.