By Clint Thompson
Florida’s peach crop was about 80% this year. It was also earlier than normal, explains Jose Chaparro, associate professor in the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS).
“The people that thinned on time are going to do well. I think we’ve had people picking since March. In north-central Florida, there’s been people picking since March, I would say third week of March or so. It’s going to be an early end because everything is moving so quickly,” Chaparro said. “We were approximately two weeks ahead of normal here on (the Gainesville) campus.
“We’re early, the shape of the fruit is not as good and quality is about average. We haven’t had much of an issue with brown rot yet or even peach scab; not much in the way of disease. We haven’t had enough rain to really have an impact.”
Chaparro said growers have also experienced issues with fruit shape. All of the issues for the state’s producers can be attributed to the weather.
“We got more chilling than we got last year and we started accumulating chilling earlier than last year. The tippiness of the fruit indicates that we were warmer in January or so. We got chilling early, bloomed okay, but the temperatures were just a little bit warmer,” he added. “When you get warmer temperatures you’ve got issues with tips, fruit shape and you get earliness.”