JACK FROST NIPPING AT OUR GROVES; COLD SNAP HAS FARMERS REMEMBERING BIG FREEZE OF 1990.

Byline: Sonia Giordani Daily News Staff Writer

With temperatures dipping into the upper 20s and the first frosts nipping at the new fruits of the winter crops, Ventura County farmers have been preparing for what weather experts say could be the coldest season since the disastrous winter freeze of 1990.

Area citrus and avocado farmers have warily watched as light patches of frost have visited their orchards and brought the first snap of winter during Christmas week.

Although the drop in temperatures below the freezing point broke the six-year streak of mild winters, the cool weather is not expected to cause significant damage to this season's harvest or resemble the devastating conditions of the deep freeze of 1990 that caused more than $127 million in damage.

``The farmers are doing what they can to protect their crops. But this is really just a garden-variety cold snap. It's a hard frost, but it's not going to kill any trees,'' said Terry Schaeffer, a meteorologist and private agricultural forecasting consultant who had worked with the National Weather Service.

Schaeffer said the low temperatures should not prove disastrous unless they dip into the mid- to low 20s and linger. And this cold front is not expected to rival such crop freezes as those suffered by area farmers in 1978 or 1987 or the ``big one'' of 1990.

The heavy frost that set in on Dec. 21, 1990, caused more than $23 million in damage to the county's orange crop, more than $27 million to avocado crops and more than $57 million to lemon crops. The three crops constitute nearly $300 million in value in the county's agricultural sector, which totaled more than $851 million last year.

When the temperatures dropped into the teens and low 20s during Christmas week in 1990, Richard Pidduck lost 92 percent of his lemon and avocado crops. It took the Santa Paula farmer three years to restore his 140-acre cultivation to full production capacity.

``This year doesn't remind me of the 1990 freeze - fortunately. It's milder. But we're still preparing for the cold,'' Pidduck said. ``We're not looking at the kind of cold air that damaged us in 1990. It's chilly but it's not arctic.''

Already, the early morning frosts this week have triggered Pidduck's automatic wind machines in the colder pockets in his Santa Paula farm.

``I've adjusted them so they come on in the avocado fields when it hits 31 degrees and in the lemon groves when it dips to 30.5,'' Pidduck said.

Following media reports about a wet winter caused by the infamous El Nino, Camarillo farmer John Lamb said he was more prepared for excessive water runoff than for the cold weather.

But over the past several weeks, as Schaeffer warned of this week's cold air mass moving through the region, Lamb said he has prepared as best he can for the cold weather.

``As a farmer, you're always concerned and you have to be aware. You have to always be ready,'' said Lamb, who grows about 120 acres of lemons and 175 acres of avocados. ``It's part of being a farmer.''