Frost damages crops in southeast Idaho

Maybe you woke up this morning to blackened leaves on some plants after freezing temperatures overnight, but when those blackened leaves are on a farmer’s crops, it’s pretty serious.

If you farm, it was probably a long drive out to the fields Thursday morning. Overnight, frost damaged crops in several ways — some completely invisible to the eye. It was just below 30 degrees out in southeast Idaho, so it was very cold for a very long time.

Potato farmer Marc Thiel surveyed the damage.

“Anything that was dry and wasn’t covered up, there won’t be any green tissue on there,” he said.

Below freezing temps blackened some of Thiel’s potato plants, the dry ones especially. Luckily, he said, most of his plants were watered.

“It’s tough to be a plant living in this stuff,” said Wayne Jones at the University of Idaho Bonneville County Extension. Jones said frost can be a wrecking ball for dry crops. “They find that if you sprinkle a crop, the water as it freezes gives off heat and that can protect the plant from freezing.

But it’s frost on livestock feed like alfalfa, hay and straw that can cause the biggest headache and the most concern for farmers.

“When plants freeze, nitrate levels skyrocket,” Jones said. “And it that’s bad for animals. The animal especially cows will bloat, the nitrates are pretty toxic to them and they’ll bloat and die.”

Farmer Thiel isn’t taking chances.

“I started watering alfalfa April 30 this year, and I’ve never watered alfalfa in April,” said Thiel. He said unfortunately there will probably be a few quality issues with his frozen potatoes.

Nitrate testing is available for crops at the following sites:
http://members.twinfallschamber.com/list/member/stukenholtz-labs-consulting-twin-falls-400.htm
http://www.westernlaboratories.com/