Word: cropped
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...rare snows have melted, and the record chill has receded in Florida. But the truck gardens in the far south of the state lay devastated, their tomatoes, lettuce and cucumbers wiped out by the cold. Some migrant workers are heading northward, searching for new crops to pick. There is work in the citrus groves of central Florida-hard, chilly work-as growers race to salvage what they can of an orange crop that was 30% to 40% destroyed by the Big Freeze. You can see the damage from the air-the telltale brownish gray of damaged trees edges...
...full damage to the orange crop will not be known for several weeks. Unlike much of the frigid U.S., Florida's crop growers would actually like the chilly weather to continue. A sudden flood of warm sunshine would accelerate the rotting of damaged fruit and increase the loss far beyond the $125 million already estimated. "All we need is a few days in the 80s," says Grower Karst, "and then you'll see a real disaster...
...Russians have a symbiotic relationship with cold. For them, snow is a matter of both pride and necessity. It was, after all, General Winter as much as any Russian field marshal who saved the capital from Napoleon and Hitler. Without a heavy covering of snow, the winter wheat crop suffers. The "worst" winter in recent years was that of 1975, when almost no snow fell and the Soviets had to spend scarce hard currency for foreign grain to feed their populace and livestock...
...into the soil, freezing his water line for the first time since it was installed at the turn of the century. His silage pile was unusable, frozen rock-solid; he was forced to feed his cattle scarce hay. Following an extended drought, the freeze endangered the winter wheat crop throughout the Midwest...
Worried citrus-fruit growers still could not tell whether firing up nighttime heaters had done much to save their groves. Some 55 million boxes of oranges (out of an estimated 211-million-box crop) were lost, forecasting a likely price rise. Temperatures as low as 30° at Fort Lauderdale and 23° in Homestead killed pole beans, watermelons and tomatoes. It was the worst frost in 37 years. The weather was causing even Floridians to pack up and head south. Puerto Rico reported an influx of tourists from Miami-but high winds made even San Juan...