By Clint Thompson
Peaches in Georgia and Alabama may not be in season, but their management is a year-round job for growers.
Jeff Cook, University of Georgia Cooperative Extension agriculture and natural resources agent for Peach and Taylor counties, discussed the current management strategies growers should be implementing on the heels of a bumper crop.
“This time of year, we’re trying to make sure we’re out there, a lot of the guys in middle Georgia use mating disruption for the borers. For the smaller growers that don’t, this is the time of year when we need to hit the trunks to control the borers. It’d be good to look at that. Other than that, everything should have been done up until now,” Cook said.
“Right now, all the peaches are gone, so let the trees recover. If the trees are really stressed and they’ve got a big crop on them and fertility may have been lacking, you can put a little bit of potassium out this time of year. Other than that, we’re pretty close to when we start counting chill (hours). You just hope we start to get cooler and the plants go dormant; wait for them to be dormant and hit them a couple of times for scale (insects).”