Checkers Foods is selling five navel oranges for a dollar, but don’t expect the sale price to last long now that a hard freeze has squeezed the life out of an estimated 75 percent of California’s citrus crop.

“I’ve heard it’ll be double to triple the price in two to three weeks,” said Mike Smith, store director for the grocer at 2300 La. “Eighty percent of the navel orange crop comes form California, and this is the peak of citrus season right now. This couldn’t have come at a worse time.”

From Valentine’s Day bouquets to Super Bowl spreads, shoppers in Lawrence and nationwide soon will be feeling the sting of higher prices from a wave of icy weather that has hit California farms.

Nearly every winter crop, from avocados to fresh-cut flowers, has suffered severely, agriculture experts say. Growers are coping with nearly $1 billion in losses following four consecutive nights of subfreezing temperatures.

California is the nation’s No. 1 producer of fresh citrus, growing about 86 percent of lemons and 21 percent of oranges sold in the U.S., according to the California Farm Bureau. Florida produces more citrus overall, mostly for use in orange juice, according to the USDA.

“We may adjust the prices as we discover the full extent of the damage next week, but for now, if you bought an orange at the supermarket for 50 cents, expect to pay a dollar to $1.49 for it,” said Todd Steel, owner of Royal Vista Marketing, which sells California citrus to markets throughout the country.

Drip irrigation leads to icicles on oranges, forming insulation that may help prevent the fruit from freezing in Exeter, Calif. Grocery retailers are taking stock of the impact that California's freeze will have on supplies and the prices of citrus, berries and other damaged crops in their stores. Meghan Glynn, spokeswoman for Kroger Co., said Wednesday that severe weather in California, Arizona and parts of Mexico would be expected to hurt store supplies for several months.

Growers say more than 70 percent of this season’s oranges, lemons and tangerines were still on the trees as nighttime temperatures in California’s Central Valley dipped into the low 20s and teens beginning Friday. The fruit is threatened whenever the mercury falls below 28 degrees.

At Associated Wholesale Grocers’ warehouse in Kansas City, Kan., stores’ preorders for both citrus and broccoli already have been canceled, Smith said. The supplier is working through its current inventory and looking into options, such as increasing shipments from South America or elsewhere.

But a short-term supply squeeze, he said, is inevitable.

“It’s drastically reducing the cases per store,” Smith said.

Lee Cole, chief of Santa Paula, Calif.-based Calavo Growers Inc., which sells 35 to 40 percent of the state’s $380 million avocado crop, said the freeze may have claimed up to 40 percent of Calavo’s crop in one county, and up to 35 percent in another.

Strawberries growing along the coastal regions of Southern California were mostly ruined, according to the California Strawberry Commission. The freeze also destroyed flowers that would produce the next berry crop on each plant.

Growers in the Imperial Valley also were worried about tender vegetables such as lettuce that may not have held up to nearly a week of temperatures in the mid-20s, said Brad Rippey, a USDA meteorologist.