ATLANTA -- Georgia's peach crop survived temperature swings in the winter and spring, oriental fruit moths and the threat that the coronavirus would slow the arrival of migrant workers.
Now comes the payoff for growers:
"This is probably the biggest peach crop we've had in five years," said Lee Dickey of Dickey Farms in Crawford County.
"I don't think it's going to be any kind of record breaker," said Dickey, who grows about 100,000 trees capable of yielding 7 million pounds of the fruit. "But, coming off the last three or four years, it's looking like it's going to be a great crop."
Unlike Georgia vegetable farmers, who lost about half their early spring sales when big buyers like restaurants and schools closed due to the coronavirus, peach growers are not facing supply chain issues. Almost everything they produce goes to U.S. stores or roadside stands.
Early peach varieties are already on their way to market, and, though not the cream of the crop, they are a tasty tease to what's to come.
"The big peaches that Georgia is known for in June and July are going to be really nice," Dickey predicted.
The state's $50 million annual peach crop continues to be a point of pride in Georgia's $13 billion agribusiness industry. Still, it's not the farm behemoth it once was. California and South Carolina passed the state in peach production years ago.
Irvin Lawson of Lawson Peaches in Brooks County has reduced his acreage of peach trees from 400 to about 100 in recent years because climate change has warmed winter temperatures on his farm. That makes it hard for the trees to get enough hours of temperatures below 45 degrees -- they need that chill time to bloom and set fruit.
"One week it's cold. And the next week it's almost like spring," he said. "It tricks these peach trees. They'll start blooming in early to middle February."
Business on 05/30/2020