Photo by Craig Gautreaux/LSU AgCenter
Sugarcane that turned brown as a result of the recent hard freeze.
Christmas freeze puts damper on record sugarcane season
Mon, 01/16/2023 - 11:15am
NEW IBERIA — In his 33 years of farming sugarcane, Ricky Gonsoulin had never had as good of a crop as the one he saw growing in his fields in 2022. And in 33 years, he had never lost so much as a stalk of sugarcane to a freeze.
But that unlikely scenario came to pass in late December when an arctic blast sent temperatures below freezing for three days across Louisiana. At his farm near New Iberia, Gonsoulin spent Christmas waiting for his cane to thaw so he could survey the damage and get back to work harvesting whatever remained.
