Isaac's toll on Plaquemines Parish keeps growing. Now farmers in the parish say their crops are nearly destroyed from the hurricane.
Farmers say many citrus trees were destroyed by the storm. A number of those trees were young, just replanted after Hurricane Ike. It typically takes five years for a tree to grow to maturity, when the fruit can be picked. So a lot of farmers find themselves back at square one, without any viable trees or, at this point, income.
Brown leaves and rotting oranges dot the front of Ben Becnel's farm in Plaquemines Parish. Several feet of saltwater flooded the trees here during Isaac, killing many of them. "We got about two feet higher this time than with Ike or Rita," Becnel said.
The trees located on the front side of Becnel's farm, closest to Highway 23, have to be ripped from the ground and new seedlings will be planted next spring. Becnel estimates he'll lose $500,000 because of the dead crop. And at this point, he's not even sure how he'll pay his bills.
"We have several loans we had taken out after Rita and Gustav and I don't know how we're going to pay those notes, because we don't have any income for this year," Becnel said.
But Becnel's farm isn't a total loss. He will try to save some of the trees on the backside of his property. The leaves have already started to die, but Becnel says he will wait to see if the trees can hang on and make it through the winter months.
Surviving the winter is one thing; regrowing healthy citrus is another.
Becnel is just one of about 100 farmers who find themselves with little to no crop, thanks to Isaac.
Alan Vaughn, an agent with the LSU AgCenter explains, "Well the vegetable growers who got hit, whatever they had in the ground died, but they can replant it if it dries up enough. The only problem is the fall tomatoes if we have an early freeze they're going to be damaged so we don't really know if we'll have a crop until the freeze comes in."
But citrus, certainly, is the most damaged crop. In fact, there are 530 acres of citrus trees in Plaquemines, an area dubbed the "citrus parish."
Becnel says, besides cleaning up debris left behind on his farm from the storm, there's not a whole lot he can do now. It's a helpless feeling for the man who loves this crop.
Choking up, Becnel said, "I wake up sometimes and think about it and have a cold feeling in my stomach. Not looking at them, but just thinking about them. It's tough."
While Becnel may be able to save some of his trees on the West Bank, Vaughn says citrus crops on the east bank of the parish were all destroyed because of the amount of flooding they had there.
Citrus trees on Ben Becnel's farm
