By Clint Thompson
Adverse weather conditions have been a challenge for specialty crop producers in Southeast Alabama. The combination of a freeze event in March along with steady rainfall in recent weeks has impacted production in various ways.
Neil Kelly, Alabama regional Extension agent in southeast Alabama, highlighted some of the obstacles his growers have faced this spring.
“We had started out dry and then it went to raining and we have caught up in a hurry. We went from a little on the dry side probably back in January and February and needing a little rain, and since it’s started, it hasn’t really let up,” Kelly said. “We’re kind of wet right now.
“(Also) if you remember around March 15, we had that real cold snap. We had just gotten our first plantings of tomatoes in the ground. Peaches were 50% to late bloom stage. We had a little bit of cold damage from that back in March, and we had to replant a few tomatoes. We probably lost a little bit of the peach production, but I don’t think it’s going to be detrimental to this year’s crop. It might have just saved us a thinning down the road.”
Kelly believes the peach trees impacted by the sub-freezing temperatures were through the majority of the bloom stage.