LYFORD — Willacy County’s first “high tunnel” rises from swaths of farmland like a model agricultural project.
“Everyone comes to look at it,” Cruz Salinas said outside his Lyford area home.
Standing 20 feet wide, 70 feet long and nearly 13 feet high, it’s a type of unheated greenhouse made of piping under a thick, plastic cover.
Across the Rio Grande Valley, Salinas’ high tunnel has become a sort of model.
During two growing seasons stretching from September to April, it’s yielded bumper crops of fat tycoon tomatoes, each weighing in at about a half-pound.
Starting in December, every week
Salinas harvests about 50 pounds of tomatoes.
“They’re real meaty,” said Salinas, the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley’s agriculture specialist. “We had a great harvest. I’m able to start growing tomatoes when everybody’s almost finished with their harvest.”
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