—by Matt Milkovich
Southeast peach growers lost the majority of their crop to spring freezes last year. They’re bouncing back with a big crop this year, but managing those two extremes has been a challenge.
“We’re off to a pretty good start,” Georgia grower Will McGehee said in May. “There’s a lot of peaches coming.”
Georgia growers expect to ship about 3 million boxes (or 75 million pounds) this year, roughly 25 percent larger than a normal crop, he said.
It was quite a comeback from 2023, when Georgia’s peach crop was less than 5 percent of normal. That March, temperatures reached the low 20s Fahrenheit on five separate mornings, causing widespread damage to delicate blooms. Frosts and freezes are a concern every March, but 2023 saw the state’s worst crop loss since 1955, said McGehee, who also serves as marketing director of the Georgia Peach Council.
“We can typically get through a couple of days, but can’t sustain five days at those temperatures,” he said.
After losing the crop on most of his 2,000 acres of peaches last year, McGehee had to send his H-2A workers home, which was “devastating for them,” he said. Their absence hurt local businesses, too. His H-2A guest workers normally arrive in January and work through the end of harvest in August.
Fortunately, 2024 is looking much brighter. All of his H-2A workers came back this year, “fired up and ready to go,” he said.
His peach trees were fired up, too.
“It’s like the trees took a year off and came back this year with some virility,” McGehee said.
His crews were harvesting early varieties in May, the usual harvest start time, and his trees were growing lots of limbs and leaves and fruit. McGehee and other growers were reestablishing sales relationships with their customers and were anticipating the usual “big burst in demand” in June and July, he said.
Grower Robert Dickey said Georgia has struggled with short peach crops in recent years, but 2023, when he lost more than 90 percent of his crop, was his farm’s worst loss in decades.
Dickey sells some of his peaches through his retail store, but most are sent to grocery chains across the country. Other revenue streams, including strawberries and agritourism, helped his orchard get through last year’s peach losses, he said.
Dickey had to rebuild lost sales relationships from last year and assure his customers he has an abundant supply of peaches coming this year. His crop was looking good in May, and his freestanding trees on Guardian and Lovell rootstocks were in great shape.
“We’re harvesting now,” he said. “It’s all hands on deck. We’re looking forward to good quality and volume.”
Dickey also had to send his H-2A workers home early last year, but he hired them all back this year, along with a few extra, to pick and pack the big 2024 crop, he said.
McGehee said South Carolina also suffered a big crop loss last year — but not as severe as Georgia’s, where peaches bloom about 10 days earlier.
Titan Farms, a large peach grower, packer and shipper in South Carolina, had one of its worst peach yields in 2023. To adjust to last year’s loss, the business focused on supplying only its top 10 retailers, said chief operating officer Ross Williams, who spoke during the Michigan Spring Peach Meeting in March. •
Leave A Comment