By Clint Thompson
For the second straight year, a major hurricane has devastated Georgia’s pecan crop. South Georgia pecan farmer Buck Paulk has felt the brunt of that devastation for the second year in a row.
Paulk, one of the state’s largest pecan producers with 4,100 acres, is located in Ray City, Georgia. It was on the east side of Hurricane Helene when the storm moved through the Southeast on Sept. 26 and 27. The losses are devastating, though Paulk will not know the full extent for some time because of the massive cleanup needed.
“Really, it’ll take me a couple of months to get a whole assessment together. There’s just that much to clean up,” Paulk said. “I’m going to be real hopeful that I think farm wise, 30% to 40% of trees down; severe damage on the rest of it, with 70% to 80% of the crop on the ground. I don’t know that I can salvage any of that yet until I get all of the stuff cleaned up, getting the trees and limbs out. It’s just going to take me, I estimate, a couple of months to even try to pick and salvage.”
He estimated those trees that were 10-years-old and younger fared better than older trees. Those that were 55-years-old and over fared worse.
Paulk was certain a storm like Idalia last year was a once-in-a-lifetime event. Unfortunately, Helene appears to be much worse.
“I’ll be 48 this upcoming winter. I’m probably halfway over my life, and I doubted I’ll ever see one like Idalia because we hadn’t seen one like that before. I was thinking on average you’ll probably never see something like that again. You’ll see tropical storms but not one to Idalia’s level in this area,” Paulk said. “This one here, it’s at a whole another level. I don’t know that we’ve ever seen something like this in this state.
“There’s timber and trees that have been around for more than 100 years, and (Helene) laid all of them down.”
Paulk lost 15% of his trees when Idalia moved through the region on Aug. 30, 2024.
“Fifteen percent of the farm got replanted in 2023. You add another 30% to 40% of the 85% that you didn’t replant from last year and it’s really mounting up,” Paulk said.