Harvests continue for South Texas vegetable growers as irrigation shortages and persistent drought impact cool-season crop production, said Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service experts.
Weather and the lack of water continue to be the story for producers in the Rio Grande Valley who grow a wide variety of cool-season horticultural crops, from herbs to kale, spinach and other leafy greens to carrots, cabbage and onions, said Juan Anciso, Ph.D., AgriLife Extension vegetable specialist, professor and associate head of the Texas A&M Department of Horticultural Sciences.
The region’s growing season provides more than 300 frost-free days, which makes it one of the most ideal loca-tions in the U.S. for cool-season vegetable production.
Anciso said acreage for vegetable crops in the Valley dipped slightly due to irrigation concerns. The region’s crops depend on irrigation flows from reservoirs along the Rio Grande River, and those water sources are at critical levels due to long-term drought.
Dry conditions can also benefit crop production, he said, as rainfall can delay production management and harvest. There have also been very few insect problems in vegetable fields, and disease outbreaks have been limited, with a few reports of downy mildew on leafy crops following a string of foggy mornings.
Anciso said vegetable fields in the Valley avoided damage during the recent cold fronts. Temperatures neared freezing but never reached concerning levels.
“It’s been a really dry winter, but everything is coming along fine,” he said. “Just steady progress on cool-season vegetable harvests, and the onion harvest should start soon.”
Winter Garden region faces post-freeze recovery
Larry Stein, Ph.D., AgriLife Extension horticulture specialist and professor, Department of Horticultural Sciences, Uvalde, said recent freezing temperatures did reach the Winter Garden growing region situated between San Antonio and Laredo. The region boasts some of the state’s best growing conditions for spinach, cabbage and onions.
Stein said temperatures swung from 80-degree highs to 17-degree lows in some areas. Spinach fields that were near harvest were damaged but should recover well. Younger spinach and onions appear to have come through the cold unscathed. Stein said it will be a few more weeks before growers can fully assess cabbage fields, some of which were being harvested before the cold fronts.
“We’re having a good season so far, but that makes the fifth year that we’ve had a cold snap in January,” he said. “It looks like most of the crops took it OK, but there is always some concern when temperatures go from one extreme to the other.”
Growers around the Winter Garden region continue to endure extreme drought conditions. Most irrigation for production comes from the Carrizo-Wilcox aquifer, and some wells were not producing water.
Valley growers watch water supplies and produce prices
In the Rio Grande Valley, onions continue to be the primary cool-season crop and are nearing harvest. Around 7,000 of the region’s 15,00018,000 horticultural crop acres were planted with onions – mostly mild yellow, white and red varieties.
Produce grown in the Rio Grande Valley generates $285.6 million in annual production value, according to a 2023 economic impact study by AgriLife Extension’s Center for North American Studies in the Department of Agricultural Economics.
Anciso said vegetable growers in the Valley continue to express concerns about irrigation allotments that will be necessary for warm-season vegetable and fruit crops, including citrus orchards.
Water levels at the Amistad and Falcon reservoirs — key sources of irrigation for Rio Grande Valley crops — remain critically low. Additionally, Anciso said the expected 202,000 acre-feet water delivery from Mexico on Dec. 15 has still not been received.
Beyond water, Anciso said overall vegetable prices in the Valley have been lower than in previous years.
“Prices are on the low side across the board with the exception of beets, maybe,” he said. “It would be nice if the growers could catch a break on prices and water, and sooner than later.”