BRISTOL — While brutal cold temperatures are forcing many people indoors this week, local farmers say winter is actually one of the most critical times of the year for protecting crops.
At Thompson Farms in Bristol, strawberry plants are already buried under thick layers of straw — a strategy farmers say is essential to keeping plants alive through extreme cold.
“If we grew strawberries like Florida, they’d all be dead right now,” said Scott Thompson of Thompson Farms. “So we specifically get cultivars that can handle cooler weather… and we put straw on top of it to keep it warm.”
Farmers say the straw, combined with snow cover, acts as insulation — protecting the plant’s root system from deep freezes that can kill crops months before growing season even begins.
“It’s really nice to have 3 to 5 inches of insulation over top of the plant,” Thompson said. “That’s really gonna prevent that cold from penetrating all the way down to the root system."
Thompson says winter prep is just one part of what’s actually a year-round process.
Watch: Local farmer explains how crops survive extreme cold — and why it matters for your food
“There’s a lot of work that goes into this,” Thompson said. “We only have customers on the farm for about three weeks out of the year, but it’s really a 52-week season. There's always a little tweaking, whether it's during the season, giving different types of fertilizers, or now this time going out to make sure it's warm in the wintertime."
Farmers say how crops survive winter weather can directly impact yields, and what ends up on grocery store shelves months from now.
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