ST. HELENA ISLAND, S.C. (WSAV) Many of those fresh blueberries you buy at the grocery store are grown right on the grounds of St. Helena Island. But after a cold snap and snow almost risked the lifespan of one Lowcountry farm’s precious blueberry bushes, their farmers made sure they would be saved.
Cal Hucks, operations and growing manager of Coosaw Farms, put it best when he said, “You grow an attachment to them. They're like your children.” And that attachment was put to the test when over 100,000 of their most valuable blueberry crops were at risk due to a sudden drop in temperature from last week’s winter storm.
“We knew we were going to be exposed if we hit 26 degrees, we were going to have some losses. And we saw that that was coming. And so we went into action,” Cal explained.
So, what did they do? They fought ice… with ice. Using water from the canals and retention ponds on the property, a practice they do every single day, they started spraying the fields with one goal in mind: keep those blueberries safe and protected. And it wasn’t just some random move – it was a calculated, scientific strategy using kinetic energy.
As Cal explained, “When liquid forms into a solid, so, you know, water to ice, the energy is always going to be there. It doesn’t get removed. And so, when there’s ice, it’s less kinetic energy. And so that energy gets displaced out of the water, and when it is displaced, energy is heat. And so that heat acts as an insulating barrier.”
In other words, the more ice that’s formed, the more heat is produced. This heat kept the flowers and berries underneath protected from the freezing cold.
But it wasn’t just about the science. It was about sheer hard work. Cal and his team of farmers put on their snow gear and spent all night in the below-freezing fields, constantly knocking ice off the sprinklers and making sure each bush got an even layer of protection. A job that he said, involves a lot of focus and attention.
“It's one of those things that I don't want to go home. There's too much riding on it. I want to be out here. And so I just, you know, I'd fall asleep in my truck and then wake up in 45 minutes and we go check everything again,” said Cal.
And now, when Cal looks out at the field, he can confidently say that all that hard, cold work paid off.
“You get tied to what you're doing. And so it's something that wasn’t an option. If I’ve got the opportunity to protect even 10%, I’m going to take it because it’s worth it,” he said.
Farming isn’t just a job for Cal and his crew of farmers. It’s an emotional process. And now, with the blueberries saved and the temperatures back up to around 70 degrees, the flowers are starting to bloom, and berries are starting to form. The blueberries will be ready to pick and eat by April.